"At bay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lad, and henceforth they entered no houses save to buy bread and mead. Of meat they had plenty, for as they passed through the forests Wolf was always upon the alert, and several times found a wild boar in his lair, and kept him at bay until Edmund and Egbert ran up and with spears and swords slew him. This supplied them amply with meat, and gave them indeed far more than they could eat, but they exchanged portions of the flesh for bread in the villages. At last they came down upon the Thames near ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... on our way, crowned with alova and girdled with tontoni (a gorgeous type of flannel-mouthed snapdragon which kept all manner of insects at bay), we wound toward the summit, stopping ever and anon to admire the cliffs of mother-of-pearl, sheer pages of colorful history thrown up long ago by some primeval illness of ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... which has brought the world to the verge of chaos and disaster would be in vain if there should ensue a return to the conditions of the past. Europe itself, whence has come the unrest which now holds the world at bay, is an example of standpatism in these vital human matters which America might well accept as an example, not to be followed but studiously to be avoided. Europe made labor the differential, and the price of it all is enmity and antagonism ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by nature a hunter of women, and preferred the excitement of a hard chase, when the deer turns at bay and its capture gave him a trophy to be proud of, to the dull conquest of a tame and easy virtue, such as were most of those which ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... not shake it off, he could at least keep it temporarily at bay. He started a guerilla campaign against the obsession with the aid of the brandy bottle. He was rarely ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... gendarmes who had escaped in the original melee, had obtained assistance, and returned on their steps. The farm-house had been surrounded, and the Marquis was indebted only to the vigilance of his peasantry for a second escape with his daughter. The gardes-de-chasse had kept the gendarmes at bay until their retreat was secure; and the post-chaise which had brought M. Gilet and his coadjutors, was, by this time, some leagues off, at full speed, beyond ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... in because he knew that one man stuck in a quagmire could not hope to keep three hundred Indians long at bay. But he had sharp wits as well as a steady hand, and with them he still fought for his life. As soon as he was brought before the chief he whipped out his compass, and showing it to the chief, explained to ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... called hamstringing. The populace, men and women, appeared very much enraged against this monster of a drover, and two constables, with their staves, stood ready to seize him; but he kept them and the whole crowd at bay, with the violent brandishing of his knife, and threatening destruction to any one who attempted to meddle with him. Several efforts were made to seize him, which he dexterously avoided. At length, I rushed up to ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... has habitually taken it. During these eight years he has made at least three efforts to leave it off, in each instance diminishing his dose gradually for a month before its entire abandonment, and in the most successful one holding the enemy at bay for but a single summer. In two cases he had no respite of agony from the moment he dropped till he resumed it. In the third case, a short period of comparative repose succeeded the first fiery battle, but in the midst of felicitations ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... quivered too much for speech. She moved swiftly across to the what-not at the head of the bed. If he did not suffer, there could be no selfishness, surely, in trying to keep death at bay for a little space yet? But, alas, with what grotesquely paltry and inadequate weapons are all—even the most gallant—reduced to fighting death at the last! Here, on the one hand, a half wine-glass of champagne in a china feeding-cup, with a teapot-like spout to it, or a few spoonfuls ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a few minutes blood ran trickling down the side of his face. As soon as he felt himself so badly hurt, Robin raged like a wild boar, while Arthur-a-Bland laid on so fast it was almost as if he were cleaving wood. Round about they went, like wild boars at bay, striving to maim each other in leg or arm or any place. Knock for knock they dealt lustily, so that the wood rang at every blow, and this they kept up for two hours ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... flatterers. You have pretended, it is said, that you returned to France because our armies were destroyed, because France was threatened, the Republic at bay. You may have left Egypt with that fear; but once in France, all such fears must have given way to a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... said, "help is close at hand. I can keep this man at bay. If I should die, Gabrielle . . . you will not ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... parents of Giles had taken strong measures to keep boredom at bay. They had their books and magazines; they had a pair of good trotters and a capacious carryall, with other like aids to locomotion in reserve; they had a telephone; they had a pianola, with a change of rolls once a month; they had ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... had spanned five orbits and probed beyond was at bay, and the expedition was tremendous. Hardly an art or science was unrepresented. If need be, whole ships could be built ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... Bayard was at Pavia. The little troop with which he was then serving had there sought refuge under Louis d'Ars. The armies of the Swiss burst in upon them. Bayard, with a handful of soldiers in the market-place, held, for two hours, their whole force at bay, while his companions were retreating from the town across a bridge of boats. As he himself was crossing, last of all, a shot struck him in the shoulder, and stripped it to the bone. No surgeon was at hand. The wound, roughly stanched with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... horse. The whole line quickened, and during the remainder of the first period they forced the fighting over into Chester territory. Indeed, after a number of downs, and a close call from having a touchdown scored upon them, Chester only barely managed to hold the hungry enemy at bay until the referee's whistle announced that the first ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... stooping to pick a piece of bracken, and waving it before him to keep at bay the flies, which were buzzing round them in clouds. He offered another bit silently to his companion, and she took ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... Humbert, breathing hard, had heard sounds in the street, and put up the chain. He stood at bay, a huge, shaken figure at the foot of the stone staircase. He was for flight now. But surely—outside at the door some one gave the secret knock of the tribunal, and followed it by the pass-word. He breathed ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... safely stored away for rigid scrutiny in the grated muniment-room of Hurstley. Oh, what a howl the caitiff gave, when he saw that his treasure had been taken! he was a wild bull in a net; a crocodile caught upon the hooks; a hyena at bay. What could he do? which way should he turn? how help himself, or get his gold again? Unluckily—Oh, confusion, confusion!—his account-books were along with all his hoard, those tell-tale legers, wherein ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Col. Molyneux. The festivities of the evening were kept up till past 12 o'clock, when a large party sallied forth for 'a spree.' They first proceeded to the extensive canvas amphitheatre of Mr. Van Amburgh, in the Bachelor's Acre, but, there, they were, fortunately, kept at bay by several of Mr. Van Amburgh's men, before they had committed any excesses. The knockers, bell handles and brass plates from several doors in the neighbourhood were then wrenched off, and the whole party then made ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... name," she replied. "I heard my father say that they are most deadly, and with them we might hold an army at bay." ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... lasted not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through the fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood or swamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to the house, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... had passed them, as excited Tommies will, and it is whispered among doctors that it was not always a Remington bullet which was cut from a wound that day. Some rallied in little knots, stabbing furiously with their bayonets at the rushing spearmen. Others turned at bay with their backs against the camels, and others round the general and his staff, who, revolver in hand, had flung themselves into the heart of it. But the whole square was sidling slowly away from the gorge, pushed back by the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... French letters. The last left you tormented with headache and toothache, too much for one poor little girl to suffer at one time, I am sure: you had doubtless taken solue sudden cold. You must fight them as well as you can till I come, and then I will engage to keep them at bay. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the military advantages of the defence when it came to eject them. They might, for example, encircle and block some fortified post, and force costly and disastrous attempts to relieve it. The defensive country would stand at bay, tethered against any effective counter-blow, keeping guns, supplies, and men in perpetual and distressing movement to and fro along its sea-frontiers. Its soldiers would get uncertain rest, irregular feeding, unhealthy conditions of all sorts in hastily made camps. The attacking fleet ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... by the influence of men powerful with the Prussian monarchy, whose homes and wealth are threatened. "If I am to hold Belgium, I must give up Alsace. How dare I do that? To save Silesia I must expose East Prussia. How dare I? I am at bay, and the East must at all costs be saved. I will hold Prussia and Silesia, but to withdraw from Belgium and from beyond the Rhine is defeat." The whole thing is an embroglio. That conclusion is necessary and inexorable. It would not appear at all ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... see on former occasions, but beyond this he could do nothing; and he was resolute not to hazard himself entering the dominion of a personage, so fearful as Guy Rivers, in such companionship as would surely compel the wolf to turn at bay. Alone, his confidence in his own stealth and secresy, would encourage him to penetrate; but, now!—he only grinned at the suggestion of the hunters saying shrewdly: "No! thank you! I'll stay out ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... reasons for holding us at bay, Mr. Devant." A thinly veiled sneer was in the low, even voice. "He has been using that wild, odd, young creature of yours as a model! And he has never told you? I greatly fear our sly Dick ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... and humiliated, I acknowledge that our Oscar is at last original. At bay, and sublime in his agony, he certainly has, for once, borrowed from no living author, and comes out in his own true colours—as his ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... whole world? Impotent and vain! Who would die a martyr to sense in a country where the religion is folly? You may stand at bay for a while; but when the full cry is against you, you shan't have fair play for your life. If you can't be fairly run down by the hounds, you will be treacherously shot by the huntsmen. No, turn pimp, flatterer, quack, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... nature; and I can well understand you would rather die than speak of it, and yet might feel disappointed. I did think I could have done better myself. But when I found how tight money was in this city, and a man like Douglas B. Longhurst—a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a corn patch for five hours against the San Diablo squatters—weakening on the operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and—I may have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could have done better—but I give you a loyal ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... renounce my wordly life and go quietly into some holy retreat where all such troubles are kept at bay, and then the thought becomes repulsive when I think of how worthless I have been, and how worthless I would still be among ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... stag at bay, proud, daring, defiant. It was some evil plot. Could a true mother lend herself to such a cruel scheme? Why was she not drawn to her, instead of experiencing this fear and repulsion? Would they keep her here, shut her up in a dark room as they had years ago, when she had ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... light from the one window that had been left unshrouded fell full upon the two men, who gazed upon each other with the utmost sang froid. Two handsomer scoundrels never stood at bay. And while the dark face expressed haughty insolence, the blonde features looked as if, after all, the occasion called for nothing more fatiguing than a stare of ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... gird their loins for the crucial test. General Lee was in the saddle gathering every available man into his ranks for his opening assault on McClellan's host. Jackson was in the Shenandoah Valley holding three armies at bay, defeating them in detail and paralyzing the efficiency of McDowell's forty thousand men at Fredericksburg, by the daring uncertainty ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... either the James or the York rivers, and in that case they might make a rush upon Richmond before there would be time to bring down troops to our aid. I am therefore proposing to erect a chain of works between the two rivers, so as to be able to keep even a large army at bay until re-enforcements arrive; but to do this a large number of hands will be required, and we are going to ask the proprietors of plantations to place as many negroes as they can spare at ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... difficulty in swallowing. That in 1734, when Walpole was keeping England at peace—that almost at the moment when he boasted, "There are fifty thousand men slain this year in Europe, and not one Englishman,"—an unmilitary pewterer was here holding at bay the Sheriff, his posse and half a regiment of soldiers, slaying seven and wounding many; and that for eight months he defied the law and defended himself, until cannon had to be dragged over the roads from Pendennis Castle to quell him—such a tale may well seem incredible to you ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the contemplation of the abandonment of their beautiful city by our troops. General Lee had for so long a time thwarted the designs of his powerful adversaries for the capture of the city, and seemed so unfailing and resourceful in his efforts to hold them at bay, that the good people found it difficult to realize that he was compelled at last to give way. There was universal gloom and despair at the thought that at the next rising of the sun the detested ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... and looks at the infant who is held up to receive her farewell, and the mother alone is calm, sheds no tear, gives the farewell kiss with composure. "Thy rod" is supporting her; "thy staff" is keeping at bay the passions and fears of the natural heart. So a widowed mother leaves a large family of young children, with a peace which passes all understanding. And the father of a dependent family, which never could, in ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... delighted with the high spirit of the army, the steps already taken, by which we had captured Savannah, and he personally inspected some of the forts, such as Thunderbolt and Causten's Bluff, by which the enemy had so long held at bay the whole of our navy, and had defeated the previous attempts made in April, 1862, by the army of General Gillmore, which had bombarded and captured Fort Pulaski, but had failed to reach the city of Savannah. I think General Barnard expected me to invite him to accompany us northward ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... seen that fire was resorted to in this war, for the purpose of annoying or destroying the adversary, or else in self defence, with the view of keeping him at bay. On the part of the Britons the fire department seems to have been presided over by Morien; and indeed the title "Mynawc," which we have here translated high-minded, and which is elsewhere connected with the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... thousand. They felt that the honour of Her Majesty's mails depended on their devotion, and that was, no doubt, dearer to them than life! So the first day wore on, and the warriors stood their ground and kept the enemy at bay. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... have roused in him a leaping passionate sympathy—the heart's yearning assent, even when the intellect was most perplexed. Now that inmost strand had given way. Suddenly the disintegrating force he had been so pitifully, so blindly, holding at bay had penetrated once for all into the sanctuary! What had happened to him had been the first real failure of feeling, the first treachery of the heart. Wishart's hopes and hatreds, and sublime defiances of man's petty faculties, had aroused ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the time being abrogated, and every man was preparing to fight for his own hand and his own land. A single day, almost, had divided the Normans of England into two factions, not yet come to blows, but facing each other like wild beasts at bay. And England and the English were the prey craved by both these ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... wounded commander. The Portuguese cheered, and led on by the governor, now became the assailants. Still the pirates' retreat was orderly; they fired and retired rank behind rank successively. They kept the Portuguese at bay until they had arrived at the boats, when a charge was made and a severe conflict ensued. But the pirates had lost too many men; and without their Captain, felt dispirited. As they lifted Davis into the boat in his dying agonies he fired his pistols at his pursuers. They ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... began to fortify themselves, the women digging a trench and throwing up a breastwork of logs and branches, deep hid in the bosom of the wood, while the warriors skirmished at the edge to keep the trappers at bay. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... drunk. She accompanied Bill everywhere, and, whatever his occupation or condition, was never far from his side. She was a big strong hound, and her flanks bore many honourable scars attesting to her experience of the marsupial at bay. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... written. The whole scene,—the vales and forests resounding with the music of the horns, the finding of the quarry, the flying stag outstripping the wind, the pack at fault, but starting in again as they find the scent, the tally-ho of the hunters, the noble animal at bay, his death, and the shouts of the crowd,—are all pictured with a freshness and genuine out-door feeling which seem almost incredible considering Haydn's age. This remarkable number is separated from its natural companion, the bacchanalian chorus, by a recitative extolling the wealth of ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... handling of Dr. Mowry, if that worthy gentleman could have won his way to the lad's confidence; but the ponderous methods of the city parson showed no fineness of touch. Even the father, as we have seen, could not reach down to any religious convictions of the son; and Reuben keeps him at bay with a banter, and an exaggerated attention to the personal comforts of the old gentleman, that utterly baffle him. Reuben holds too much in dread the old catechismal dogmas and the ultimate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... government, which make up for them. You cannot surely hope that the tyranny of Tutor and Classicus would mean milder government, or that they will need less taxation for the armies they will have to raise to keep the Germans and Britons at bay. For if the Romans were driven out—which Heaven forbid—what could ensue save a universal state of intertribal warfare? During eight hundred years, by good fortune and good organization, the structure of empire has been consolidated. It cannot be pulled down without destroying those who do it. ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... well-organised attitude; the Fingoes and Hottentots were armed, and showed some courage in defence of the colony and the harassed troops; by dint of courage and exertion they appeared in various directions intime to keep the enemy at bay, and preserve the lives and habitations of the Dutch and English settlers. This was the state of matters when, on the 26th of April, the Caffres came down in great numbers and swept away the cattle of the colonists, driving them ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the door she was already out of sight. Scarcely less excited than she, he set off for Double Dykes, his imagination in such a blaze that he looked fearfully in the pools of the burn for a black frock. But Grizel had not drowned herself; she was standing erect in her home, like one at bay, her arms rigid, her hands clenched, and when he pushed open the door ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... that he heard [Transcriber's note: Illegible]t at bay, now the far horn, A little vext at losing of the hunt, A little at the vile occasion, rode, By ups and downs, thro' many a grassy glade And valley, with fixt eye following the three. At last they issued from the world of wood, And climb'd upon a fair and even ridge, And show'd themselves ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... was my pride, that I ought to think her worthy of being my mistress, when I had not much reason, as I thought, to despair of prevailing upon persons of higher birth (were I disposed to try) to live with me upon my own terms. My pride, therefore, kept my passion at bay, as I may say: so far was I from imagining I should ever be brought to what has ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... who screamed and ran into the cook's galley, amid the applause of the seamen, who made all sorts of shouts inciting him to run, crying out, "Run, Baptiste! run, Baptiste!" In this manner the little darkie kept the officer at bay for more than fifteen minutes, passing out of one door as the officer entered the other, to the infinite delight of the crew. At length his patience became wearied, and as he was about to call ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... and, leaping down, ran forward with drawn swords. Two of the knights fell dead before they had time to draw their weapons. The third shook off his two assailants, and for a minute kept them both at bay; but others, rushing up, cut ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... stuck fast until the afternoon, so had to summon such philosophy as we possessed, and while away the time as best we could. The boat's sail, spread under the shade of a tree, kept the intense heat a little at bay until after dinner, and this most essential part of the day's programme have been done ample justice to, and the pipes lighted and smoked out, we wandered about the long space left bare by the tide, amusing ourselves by collecting oysters, cowrie ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... he, kindly. "Your people were a brave race, and true as steel to your Wenooch (i.e., French). They fought as long as their allies dared to strive; and it was long after the last French fortress surrendered that the warriors met at Bay Verte, to become true subjects to the king they had ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... up his broken blade, and in an instant it was fastened to the handle with a handkerchief; and the battle recommenced, presenting the extraordinary spectacle of a man almost without arms, but also almost without wounds, keeping six enemies at bay, and with ten corpses at his feet for a rampart. When the fight began again, Monsoreau commenced to draw away the bodies, lest Bussy should snatch a sword from one of them. Bussy was surrounded; the blade of his sword bent and shook in ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... the Five Years' War with Paraguay was commenced, a struggle in which, under the tyrant Lopez, the tiny Republic held at bay the armies of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, to the utter ruin of Paraguay itself, and the virtual destruction of its male population. The struggle terminated with the death of Lopez at the Battle of Cerro Cora in 1870, after exhausting ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Business done.—LLOYD GEORGE at bay in the Commons. His famous Budget attacked afresh on motion of Amendment to Address. ANANIAS and SAPPHIRA personally mentioned in course of debate. Amendment negatived ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... the Black Plush Bag at bay had ripped a red streak down Miss Flora's avid nose that the Stranger ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... remarks referred, as no names were given and no battalions mentioned by name. Now, of course, we all know. The officer who reached Wurst Farm was John Redner Bodington, and the gallant young officer who fought like a hound at bay, while wounded over and over again, and hoped that "the General was not disappointed," was none other than the hero whose name is upon the title-page of this book—Bertram Best-Dunkley. And, as the days rolled by, one familiar name after another was recorded in the ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... give him time and hear him for he would hold the rifle in his hand; he would be able to hold them at bay until he stated everything. When he had done, they would understand that their only salvation would be to surrender. Then he would be in command of the caravan and lead it directly to Bahr Yusuf and the Nile. To be sure, at present they are quite a distance from it, perhaps ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and began folding the child's clothes. He knocked. She opened wondering, a little bit at bay, like a foreigner, uneasy. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... now the only Greek chief that still fought in the centre. The Greeks all fled, and he was alone in the crowd of Trojans, who rushed on him as hounds and hunters press round a wild boar that stands at bay in a wood. "They are cowards that flee from the fight," said Ulysses to himself; "but I will stand here, one man against a multitude." He covered the front of his body with his great shield, that hung by a belt round ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... neither will any among us ever forget for a single instant how much was paid for us in blood and anguish by those who held the beast at bay from us for long years before we put forth a stroke in our own defense or in friendly help or in ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... if at bay, but she must have felt the influence of his restraint, for she showed no fear. "There's no such thing as love," she said bitterly. "You dress it up and call it that. But all the time it's something quite different. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... that time. Tutt an' Texas holds to the last that his light gettin' blowed out like it does is accidental. Peets, however, insists it's a shore-enough sooicide. Of course, Boggs goes with Peets. Whatever's the question at bay, Boggs never fails to string his play with the Doc's; it's Boggs's system. All you has to do to get a rise out o' Boggs is get some opinion out o' Peets. Once the Doc declar's himse'f, Boggs is right thar to back said declaration for ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... out of a dough; You may say that he's smooth and all that till you're hoarse But remember that elegance also is force; After polishing granite as much as you will, The heart keeps its tough old persistency still; Deduct all you can that still keeps you at bay, Why, he'll live till men weary ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... the important day, which was to decide the fate of the visit. The contending parties met as usual at breakfast; they seemed mutually afraid of each other, and stood at bay. There was a forced calm in the gentleman's demeanour—treacherous smiles played upon the lady's countenance. He seemed cautious to prolong the suspension of hostilities—she fond to anticipate the victory. The name of Mrs. Granby, or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... young animal at bay, stood facing them all for a breathless moment. In that time the child that had been in her, through all these years of slow development, died. Anger went out of her eyes, and an infinite sadness ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... astonishment from the rest of the party as Sam thus seated himself at bay. Even the girl of the buggy did ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... and he looked like a rat at bay. "So you intend to save yourself at my expense. But it won't do, my lord. You wrote that letter, if I carried it to ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... sound of that hated voice she gave a violent start, a faint, startled cry, and, turning for the first time, eyed him like a wild animal at bay. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... rejected, by the popular vote, the infamous law which its legislature had adopted, and by virtue of which free negroes who should not quit the State would be reduced by right to slavery? When I remember these facts, so important and so recent, I comprehend how it is that a Kentuckian holds the South at bay behind the menaced walls of Fort Sumter, and how the cabinet of Mr. Lincoln has ministers in its midst, who ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... ibex, oryx, or wild ox, being closely pressed by the hounds, faced round and kept them at bay, with its formidable horns, and the spear of the huntsman as he came up, was required to decide the success of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... one day driving through the forest of Fontainebleau when a man, half clothed and with a demented air, sprang towards the carriage, grimacing horribly. The Duke's suite, taking him for a madman, would have kept him at bay, but the Duke, at that moment awaking from sleep, unbuttoned his shirt and showed his assailant an iron ring suspended round his neck. At this sight the man took to his heels and disappeared into the wood. The mystery of this incident was never elucidated, and the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... relations to whom she could confide the life and interests of her cherished child. Would he not blame her when in his violet robes he longed to be a father as she had been a mother? These thoughts, and her melancholy life so full of secret sorrows were like a mortal illness kept at bay for a time by remedies. Her heart needed the wisest management, and those about her were cruelly inexpert in gentleness. What mother's heart would not have been torn at the sight of her eldest son, a man of mind and soul in whom a noble ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... ground. Near it was the panther, crouched, as though about to make a spring; while, at a short distance, standing erect upon his hind-legs, with his back against a large rock, was a huge cinnamon bear, evidently at bay. ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... felt afraid. There was a ring in Mrs. Vandemeyer's voice that she did not like at all. Also, the other woman was slowly edging her up the passage. Tuppence turned at bay. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... seized me and tried to force me against the wall; but the Turco, with his shrill, wolf-like battle yelp, attacked them, sabre-bayonet in hand. Speed, too, had wrested a rifle from a half-stupefied ruffian, and now stood at bay before the Countess; I saw him wielding his heavy weapon like a flail; then in the darkness Tric-Trac shot at me, so close that the powder-flame scorched my leg. He dropped his rifle to spring for my throat, knocking me flat, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... bullets. Colonel Travis fell, and so did Bowie, sick and weak from a wasting disease, but rising from his bed, and dying fighting with his great knife red with the blood of his foes. At last a single man stood at bay. ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... things as they once had been—empty, purposeless days, and nights that found him too bored to even sleep. It seemed incredible that he could go back to them again. What lay at the bottom of his sudden deep-breathed satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which he had kept at bay with his old trick of evasion ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... yelping kennel of French curs! If we be English deer, be then in blood; Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch, But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags, Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel And make the cowards stand aloof at bay: Sell every man his life as dear as mine, And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends. God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right, Prosper our colors ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... At the end of it, in front of the overturned table, they halted suddenly. For there before them, skull-emblazoned, shield on arm, his long sword lifted, and a terrible wrath burning in his eyes, stood the old knight, like a wolf at bay, and by his side, bow in hand, the beauteous lady Rosamund, clad in all ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... She stood splendidly at bay, her eyes gleaming, her cheeks bloodless, her lithe body in an attitude finer than she knew. They looked into each other's pupils, long, intensely, as if reading the heart there. Miriam's eyes were the first ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... your life. I stood between the trees and the foe, and kept hundreds and thousands of the enemy at bay when they were thirsting for your blood. And I did not do it to display my daring. I did it because I loved you and could not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was not the Swedish King still, as before, the one real man of mark in the whole world of the Baltic, the hope of that league of Protestant championship on the Continent which Cromwell had laboured for; and was he not now standing at bay against a most ugly and unnatural combination of enemies? Not only were John Casimir and his Roman Catholic Poles, and the Emperor Leopold and his Roman Catholic Austrians, and Protestant Brandenburg and some other German States, all in eager alliance with the Danes ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Of famine fed upon all entrails—men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them,[57] or the dropping dead 50 Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... determined to give himself to music and literature so long as he could keep death at bay, he sought a land of books. Taking his flute and his pen for sword and staff, he turned his face northward. After visiting New York he made his home in Baltimore, December, 1873, under engagement as first flute for the Peabody ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... meantime the captain was darting about making sinister gestures, but the back of the tall man held him at bay. The crew, much depleted by the departure of the imperturbable man into the boat, looked ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... nature, and the sight of a woman's tears always aroused in me, not the angel, but the brute. For five years I had been married to a descendant of the Blands and the Fairfaxes, and yet, as I stood there, held at bay, in the midst of those sobbing women, the veneer of refinement peeled off from me, and the raw strength of the common man showed on the surface, and triumphed again as it had triumphed over the frightened directors in ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... turned himself slowly and, sitting up, waited for her to speak. There was little to hope for, he thought, in her expression. And all of his duplicity seemed to desert him before her cold resolution. The tricks he would have tried, at bay before a man, he felt no inclination to attempt. He read in her set face only abhorrence and condemnation, and felt in no way moved to argue her verdict. "I suppose," he said, at length, not trying to disguise his bitter resentment of her presence, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... Preble and Billy were driving him back into my studio. He made several dashes to escape, but was out-manoeuvred and driven onto the far point, where he was really between the devils and the deep sea. Here he faced about at bay, growling furiously, thumping his little bobtail from side to side, and pretending he was going to spring on us. I took photo No. 2 at 25 yards. He certainly did look very fierce, but I thought I knew the creature, as well as the men who were backing me. I retired, put a ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... explain a phenomenon almost unexampled in history,—that twenty millions of people, brave, highly intelligent, and mastering all the wealth of modern civilization, were, if not virtually overpowered, at least so long kept at bay by about ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... stuck full of darts, and covered with fireworks, the unfortunate beast went galloping round and round, plunging blindly at man and horse, and frequently trying to leap the barrier, but driven back by the waving hats and shouting of the crowd. At last, as he stood at bay, and nearly exhausted, the matador ran up and gave him the mortal blow, considered a peculiar proof of skill. The bull stopped, as if he felt that his hour were come, staggered, made a few plunges at nothing, and fell. A finishing stroke, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... forsworn, took it and swallowed it; but hardly had it settled well in his stomach, when his head forwent both his feet and he was as though he had been a year asleep. As soon as the Nazarene saw this, rose to his feet as he had been a scald wolf or a cat-o'-mount[FN289] at bay and, taking the saloon key, left Ali Shar prostrate and ran off to rejoin his brother. And the cause of his so doing was that the Nazarene's brother was the same decrepit old man who purposed to buy Zumurrud for a thousand ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... they were sitting on the porch enjoying the cool evening air after dinner. The judge was smoking. He was not a slave to the weed, but he enjoyed a quiet pipe after meals, claiming that it quieted his nerves and enabled him to think more clearly. Besides, it was necessary to keep at bay the ubiquitous Long Island mosquito. Mrs. Rossmore had remained for a moment in the dining-room to admonish Eudoxia, their new and only maid-of-all-work, not to wreck too much of the crockery when she removed the dinner dishes. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... the boat up and to lay hold of one of the boat-tackles. This he did willingly enough, no doubt expecting that he was to be received into the ship, under a treaty. I stood on the look-out to prevent an attack, one man being abundantly able to keep at bay a dozen who could approach only by ascending a rope hand over hand, while Marble went below to look after the two worthies who had been snoring all night in the cabin. In a minute my mate reappeared, leading up the seaman, who was still more asleep than ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... one foot stuck in the leg of the other. He could not run and he had no knife to cut the leather. I yanked his boot off and we took to our heels, the militia within 20 yards. Talley's pistol had filled with snow and he could not fire a shot. But we reached the timber and stood at bay. George Talley was shot dead at this last stand, but when the militia fell back, their dead and wounded numbered seventeen. Nathan Kerr, Geo. Wigginton, Bill Hulse and John McCorkle did well ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... twanging of bows, a clatter of lances, more firing, with greater danger of somebody getting hit than there had been at first, and Two Knives found his little band assailed on all sides at once by superior numbers. The orders of Many Bears were that the rear rank of his foes should only be kept at bay at first, so that he could centre nearly all his force upon the foremost squad. The latter contained a bare two dozen of chosen warriors, and their courage and skill were of little use in such a wild hurly-burly. To-la-go-to-de ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... was a stronger lock than the former, she mused on the abstract question whether a woman's cowardice can be so absolute as to cast her into the jaws of her aversion. Is it to be conceived? Is there not a moment when it stands at bay? But haggard-visaged Honour then starts up claiming to be dealt with in turn; for having courage restored to her, she must have the courage to break with honour, she must dare to be faithless, and not merely say, I will be brave, but be brave enough to be dishonourable. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... money with a greedy, frightened look, like a wild beast at bay, but did not utter a word, as Robert placed it in a large envelope and secured ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... gust of wind upon the living embers of his fears. It blew them into a blaze of wrath, sudden and terrific as that of such a man at bay could be. He advanced upon her with the rolling gait of the obese, his cheeks purple, his arms waving wildly, his ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Manston was murdered, as some said, on the night of the fire, Cytherea was the steward's lawful wife. Manston at bay, and reckless of results, might rush to his wife and ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... name, the stranger turned, standing at bay, but Chamberlain was at his heels. "You see, I know your name. It was supplied me at the Reading-room. Here—on ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... glass shades, and the charming household porcelain from the Derby and Worcester furnaces. There must have been a sabbatic air of comfort about the dining-room which was soothing. I can see the engravings after Landseer: 'The Stag at Bay,' 'Dignity and Impudence'; or those after Martin: 'The Plains of Heaven,' and 'The Great Day of His Wrath'; and 'Blucher meeting Wellington,' after Maclise. I can see on each side of the mirror examples of the art of Daguerre, which have ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... just about this time that I saw Kelly engaged with two men, whom he kept at bay with great ease—retrograding, however, as he fought, towards his own party. Grimes, who had for some time before this recovered and joined the fight once more, was returning, after having pursued several of the Ribbonmen past the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Padua, the ship of Vice-Admiral Francisco de Vallecilla. For six hours the duel between the Prins Willem and the St Jago went on with fierce desperation, the captain of the Walcheren gallantly holding at bay the galleons who attempted to come to the rescue of Oquendo. At 4 p.m. the St Jago was a floating wreck with only a remnant of her crew surviving, when suddenly a fire broke out in the Prins Willem, which nothing could check. With difficulty the St Jago ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... faced the enemy, I am certain he must have kept the boldest at bay; but if he shewed them his back, as from his heated appearance I strongly suspect that he did, he must have afforded the Yankee riflemen as much fun as if they had been in pursuit of a fat ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... it is always the last resource of ministers to call those measures necessary which they cannot show to be just; and when they have tried all the arts of fallacy and illusion, and found them all baffled, to stand at bay, because they can fly no longer, look their opponents boldly in the face, and stun them with the formidable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... unanswerable. The only answer Katie would be prepared to make to it was that she didn't believe, all things considered, it was a thing she would have said. But doubtless people lost nice shades of feeling when they became creatures at bay fighting for life. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... Khan,' he called back. 'I hunt among the ploughed fields to-night'; and he plunged downward through the bushes, to the stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he heard the yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted Sambhur, and the snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter howls from the young wolves: 'Akela! Akela! Let the Lone Wolf show his strength. Room for the leader of ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... I was in for it, so just before reaching the steps leading to the bar, I resolutely faced my pursuers and stood at bay. They bore down upon me like ships that pass—no, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... against this column of 10,000 men. The second column was then united, consisting of 12,000 men, which marched on the high road as far as Beausois, and from that village turned off to join the first column; and the attack recommenced against Col. Congreve's redoubt, who kept the whole at bay. The enemy's flank was supported by the village of Caudry, to defend which they had six pieces of cannon, 2000 infantry, and 500 cavalry. During this period Gen. Otto conceived it practicable to fall on their flank with the cavalry; in consequence ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... and be dispatched, as he would be sure to do when he found that the father was close at hand; and from the proximity of the two men, it could hardly fail to precipitate a collision between them. The Indian, finding himself at bay, could not fail to prove a most troublesome and dangerous customer, unarmed, as Richter was, with weapons ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the District Brother Pillsbury has been stationed at Bay View and Menasha, but, his health failing, he took a supernumerary relation at the last Conference, and at this writing is residing at Minneapolis. He has done considerable literary work, in connection with his Ministerial labors. Brother Pillsbury has a well balanced mind, and ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... everything to lose, but nothing to gain,' alluding, as was supposed, to the former reputation of this corps. Webster's brigade moved on, and drove the Americans from behind the court-house: the legion then pursued them, but the whole British army was actually kept at bay, for some minutes, by a few mounted Americans, not ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... one to another, growing pale and red by turns. There was a certain surprise in her look, as she found herself thus at bay. The triumph of having got the better of their opposition was lost in the sense of isolation with which the girl, so long the first object of everybody about her, felt herself thus placed alone. And the tears were very ready to start, but were kept back by jealous ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... their daughters in Oxford; and well they may. I tried to get into his good graces, and to be sociable with him; but in vain. I said several good things in his shop, but he never laughed; he had no relish for wit and humor. He was one of those dry old gentlemen who keep youngsters at bay. He had already brought up two or three daughters, and was experienced in the ways ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... anxious to save a soul, banded themselves together, and by constant prayer and powerful exorcisms kept the powers of darkness at bay, and Tregeagle died and was buried in St. Breock Church. But the demons were not so ready to give up what they felt was their lawful prey. An important lawsuit occurred shortly after his death, and as the judge was about to give his decision against the unjustly accused ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... not disobey their master, when he said to us, 'If I am flogged this way, it will be all over with us. Now's your time; run back behind the house, and when he comes out with the whip, do you go in and seize the muskets, which are always ready loaded. Hold him at bay till I get clear, and then we will get away somehow or other. You must do it, for I am sure he will flog me till I am dead, and he will shoot you, as runaway prisoners, as he did his two Hottentots the other day.' ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... outside the walls of Quebec. But the British fleet came up in May; and that summer three British armies converged on Montreal, where the last doomed remnants of French power on the St Lawrence stood despairingly at bay. When Levis found his two thousand effective French regulars surrounded by eight times as many British troops he had no choice but to lay down the arms of France for ever. On the 8th of September 1760 his gallant little army was included in the Capitulation of Montreal, by which the whole ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... blow at religious freedom which it had ever received. The Presbyterians flocked back to their seats; and an "Ordinance for the Suppression of Blasphemies and Heresies," which Vane and Cromwell had long held at bay, was passed by triumphant majorities. Any man—ran this terrible statute—denying the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of Christ, or that the books of Scripture are "the Word of God," or the resurrection of the body, or a future day of judgement, and refusing ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... the first brunt of the attack Sholto, who was at the other end of the line from his father, had to meet three opponents at once. He kept them at bay for a minute by the quickness of his defence, but being compelled to give back he was parrying a couple of their blades in front, when the third got in a thrust beneath his arm. It was as if the hostile sword had stricken a stone wall. The flimsy and treacherous blade went to flinders, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... decided to spend the night. A pack of prairie wolves, or coyotes, soon came upon the scene, several of which he shot, but he was shortly after reinforced by a friendly dog, who came to his rescue and kept the coyotes at bay for the remainder of the night. In the morning at daybreak he was glad enough to say adieu to the haystack where he had passed one of the most ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... and Gonsalvo de Cordova, in the army; practised alike in the heavy assault of the Christian warfare, and the rapid and dexterous exercise of the Moorish cavalry. There he remained, alone and grim—a lion at bay—while his troops slowly retreated down the Vega, and their trumpets sounded loud signals of distress, and demands for succour, to such of their companions as might be within bearing. Villena's armour defied the shafts ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... George Doughton's discovery, for now I know that he was told of my past, and was told by Montague Fallock. He demanded impossible sums. I gave him as much as I could, almost ruined myself to keep this blackmailer at bay, but all to ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... said, "for one whole day thou hast kept thy oath. No matter what the anguish that it cost thee, from sunrise till sunsetting thou hast held Despair at bay. It was the bravest stand that thou hast ever made. And now, if thou hast lived through this one day, why not another? 'Tis only one hour at a time that thou art called on to endure. Come! By the bloodstone that is thy birthright, pledge ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... miles off, like a roebuck at bay, Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array: Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Mary, its patron saint. In the Cathedral Church of St. Martin the citizens set up an image of Notre, Dame-de-Thuine, that is, Our Lady of the Enclosures, an allusion to the strong barrier of thorns which had kept the enemy at bay; and a kermesse, appointed to be held on the first Sunday of August every year in commemoration of the siege, received the name of the 'Thuindag,' or Day of the Enclosures.[*] The people of Ypres, though they fought on the French side, had good reason to be proud of the way in which they defended ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... amidships lay two men from the Tiger, sorely wounded, while Job and two others stood at bay above them, swinging cutlasses mightily, and beating off, time after time, the attacks of a dozen fierce pirate hanger-men. A number of buccaneers had fallen but all who were unwounded were raging like a pack of dogs about the figures of Job and his ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... darkest red, his mouth such a mere slit that you wondered how the flood of his words came rushing from it. His eyes were the brightest and lightest blue and the hopefulest that I ever saw. He gave the double impression that he was at bay and that you had better ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... because the mountains which guarded their flanks were impassable for the Greek artillery. By blowing up the bridges over the Struma the impetuosity of the Greek pursuit was delayed, and it was in the Kresna Pass that the Bulgarian rear-guard first turned at bay. The pass is a twenty-mile gorge cut through mountains 7,000 feet high, but the Greeks turned the Bulgarian positions by marching across the mountains, and it was near Semitli, five miles north of the pass, that the Bulgarians offered their last serious resistance. It was a wonderful ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... The young Arab sprang off its back, and, seizing its nose-ring, he beat it savagely with the flat of his sword to make it stand up. But the dim, glazing eye told its own tale, and in desert warfare the death of the beast is the death of the rider. The Baggara glared round like a lion at bay, his dark eyes flashing murderously from under his red turban. A crimson spot, and then another, sprang out upon his dark skin, but he never winced at the bullet wounds. His fierce gaze had fallen upon the prisoners, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his way back to the foot of the road at a trot, where ninety-nine men out of almost any hundred would have been lost hopelessly; and close to the road he overtook Darya Khan, hugging his rifle and staring about like a scorpion at bay. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Northern, but they have been since the first moment Jack got a glimpse of them. He could see, too, that they were thinner: that on the spur of the plateau in front of the massed rebel artillery a single brigade was holding the Union mass at bay. He can almost hear the rebel commands as the re-enforcements pour in. But now the thunder breaks out anew, rolls in vengeful fury around the western and northern base of the plateau. The gray lines stagger; the falling men block the steps of the living. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... constantly threatened by the French and Indians, who were always numerous at the French posts and settlements on the isthmus. The French constructed on the northern bank of the Missiquash a fort of five bastions known as Beausejour, and a smaller one at Bay Verte, with the object, as previously stated, of keeping up communication with Louisbourg, which they were strengthening in some measure. At Fort Beausejour the treacherous priest Le Loutre continued to pursue his insidious designs of creating dissatisfaction among the French Acadians and pressing ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... had seemed to him, as alone afar he lay, With the Nile to watch for laggard friends, fierce foes to hold at bay; Though the tired red lines toiled onward up the Cataracts, and we Dreamed of the shout of the rescuing host his eyes ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... to the dread recital, and felt like some young stag who stands at bay with brave pose and heart of fire, but who sees himself compassed round and knows clearly that there is no escape. With his bold young face, his steady blue eyes, and the proud poise of his head, he was a worthy scion of the old house, and the sun, shining through ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... some things you cannot bear to think that anybody would think you would do; that is why I wish to say plainly at the very beginning that none of us would have shot a fox on purpose even to save our skins. Of course, if a man were at bay in a cave, and had to defend girls from the simultaneous attack of a herd of savage foxes it would be different. A man is bound to protect girls and take care of them—they can jolly well take care of themselves really it seems to me—still, this is what ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... to Paris with about three thousand men. The royal troops, eight thousand in number, pursued. Each party gathered re-enforcements, so that the Prince de Conde, with about five thousand men, held at bay the royal troops, then numbering about ten thousand. The citizens, as we have mentioned, were in sympathy with the Parliament. They hated Cardinal Mazarin, and with good reason regarded the king as ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... while was standing simmering, as ready as a boar at bay to fight the lot of us, yet I thought with an air about him, too, of half-conscious surprise. Several times he took a half-pace forward to assert his right of chastisement, looked hard at ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... away; he stood up, and looked at her with the eyes dilated, half in fear, half in fierceness, of an animal at bay; he did not heed that his abrupt movement had almost thrown her prostrate ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... on account of the noise. He was too shaken up to think clearly, but he wondered, as the rattling train moved slowly along, how long he could go without food, how he would get back from Buffalo, and whether this dreadful companion of his would take his stand, like an animal at bay, whenever the ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... you, Morrison? Even supposing I did buy it, you can't prove I ever wore it. I defy you to," Ward gritted his teeth; and somehow his manner reminded Paul of a wolf at bay. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... these wanted to release their chiefs without bloodshed if possible. One portion of the assailants, carrying out a pre-arranged plan, formed an extended circle around the van, and kept the police and mob who had rallied to their assistance at bay, while a second party set themselves to effecting an entrance to the van. This was more difficult than had been expected, for had Brett ridden on the step behind as usual the keys could readily ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... paid her for several bets won, attempted to go on with his duties. People, some delighting in the "row," others annoyed at the delay, placed their stakes, but she, a lioness at bay, stared furiously without putting a piece on the table. As the disc turned, however, she pounced. She threw a louis into the wheel. But the croupier, without changing countenance, took out the coin, pushed ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Vergil's image, dash themselves from this quarter and that against the rooted oak. The madness of her failure drives her through the streets like a Maenad in the nightly orgies of Cithaeron; she flies at last to her chamber like a beast at bay, and gazes out distracted at the Trojan shipmen putting off busily from the shores. Yet ever and again the wild frenzy-bursts are broken by notes of the old pathetic tenderness. In the midst of her taunts and menaces she turns with a woman's delicacy to protest ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... its centre, evidently very glad to see him, and ready to welcome any confidences he might give her, produced a sudden sharp effect upon him. That hunger for something denied him—the "It" which he was always holding at bay—sprang upon him, and shook ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping all others at bay until the Girl ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... annihilated—he was only held at bay. She knew that he would come, and that there would be no slipping away when his hand actually grasped hers. She believed in death; she had supposed herself being drawn into his remorseless grasp. To her the experience, so far as it ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... eagerly downward from my dizzy ledge. How full of meaning that sound was to me you may guess when I tell you that it was the report of a firearm! For a moment my gaze traversed the landscape beneath until it was caught and held by four figures near the base of the cliff—a human figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, those ferocious and blood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beast lay dead ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... twisted white hair shine in the sun like the angry silken hairs of a boar at bay. The neck is athletic and recommends itself to the notice of caricaturists by an infinity of wrinkles, of furrows; by a dewlap faded but armed with darts in the ...
— A Street Of Paris And Its Inhabitant • Honore De Balzac
... when no court exists that might more or less control them, to impress on them a certain curb in their semi-official and non-official conduct. But at times it is difficult, even to a sovereign, to a court, to keep in order the intriguing diplomats, above all to keep them at bay ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski |
