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More "Headsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and regret; nevertheless, he dreaded the humiliation that would follow a violation of the oath he had sworn in the presence of his court; so, summoning an executioner, he immediately gave the fatal order; and John was forthwith beheaded in the dungeon. The headsman returned, carrying a dish in which lay the ghastly trophy of the corrupt queen's vengeance. The bloody gift was delivered to Salome, who carried it with inhuman triumph to her mother. Some of John's disciples came, secured the corpse, laid it in a tomb; and bore the tidings of his ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... brothers of his doom, and the second brother returned in his stead to the judge, thanked him for having given him permission to perform a duty required by filial piety, and said he was then ready to die. He knelt with bowed head, and the headsman brought the knife down across the back of his neck, but the knife was nicked and the neck was left unscathed. A second knife, and a third of finer steel, were brought and tried by headsmen who were accustomed to sever heads clean off at one stroke. Having spoiled their best blades without ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... "think of what you're doing to this great capital, of which we are all so justly proud. The Tower has become a disused place, and its historic hill no more reverberates to the merry chopping of the headsman's axe. Temple Bar has gone, and long ago have vanished the heads that used to look wistfully down on the passing chairmen. The chairmen themselves have sped into eternity, and in their place circles the Hansom cab. No more ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... me a wry grin. "Certainly. The hands of the felon were amputated at the wrist. Usually with a headsman's ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... guillotine, laid a bet with M. de Miranges that his own blood would flow bluer than that of any other head cut off that day in France. Citizen Samson heard the bet made, and when De Mirepoix's head fell into the basket, the headsman lifted it up for M. de Miranges ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... cell door opened; soft the headsman came, Within his hand a mighty axe a-gleam, (A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes,) . . . And as he lay, the sleeper dreamed ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... principles underlying it a reasonless and rascally feud between rich and poor; in which one is offered a choice (if one have the means to take it) between American plutocracy and European militocracy, with an imminent chance of renouncing either for a stultocratic republic with a headsman in the presidential chair and ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... with honey of tenderer words than tears To feed men's hopes and fortify men's fears, And strong to silence with benignant breath The lips that doom to death, 190 And swift with speech like fire in fiery lands To melt the steel's edge in the headsman's hands. ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Maffio Petrucci, } Jeppo Vitellozzo, } Gentlemen of the Duke's Household Taddeo Bardi, } Guido Ferranti, a Young Man Ascanio Cristofano, his Friend Count Moranzone, an Old Man Bernardo Cavalcanti, Lord Justice of Padua Hugo, the Headsman Lucy, a Tire woman ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... a most dutiful daughter-in-law, and with the baby long kept the headsman's ax from descending. But even their restraining power had its limitations. The irk of that "godless" office was being more and more poorly met by Dave. Five times during the fourth year he took ungranted periods of relaxation. The last time the usual draft was not paid. He unwisely ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... hold of the twentieth man and make him even mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights and swashbucklers and outlaws, were regarded with indulgence or even admiration. To kill a man lawlessly was ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... the forbidden city on the Tagus, succeeded in obtaining through bribery a copy of one of the secret charts. The Spanish authorities scarcely could have been aware that he had learned a secret of such immense importance, or his silence would have been insured by the headsman. As it was, he was thrown into prison for illegal trading, where he was held for heavy ransom. But he managed to get word to Amsterdam of the priceless information which had come into his possession, whereupon the merchants of that city promptly ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... custody," answered Villefort; "and rely upon it, if the letter is found, he will not be likely to be trusted abroad again, unless he goes forth under the especial protection of the headsman." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... by no means inviting of confidences such as his visitor was about to tender him. Rather he seemed fully armed for the defence, especially in the matter of the heavy gold pince-nez, which he held threateningly, after the manner of the headsman of old towards the victim on whom he was about ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... headsman came to Vagn. Now, as he had a dislike to this brave viking, Thorkel rushed at him, holding his sword in both hands. But Vagn threw himself suddenly at Thorkel's feet, whereupon the headsman tripped over him. In a moment Vagn was on his feet, Thorkel's sword in his hand, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... know me? dost know me? was all the maiden said, As she streamed her golden tresses through the half-unkneaden bread, While the sunset light came sheening athwart the oaken floor, And the Headsman chanted his roundelay at ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... interceded for them with all his might, even telling the king that such an execution would tarnish his honor, and that reprisals would be made on his own garrisons; and all the nobles joined in entreating pardon for the citizens, but still without effect; and the headsman had been actually sent for, when Queen Philippa, her eyes streaming with tears, threw herself on her knees amongst the captives, and said, "Ah, gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea with much danger to see you, I have never asked you one favor; now I beg as a boon to myself, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... threatening doom; it cried aloud, and gnashed upon him. All anguish that shakes human souls was gathered there; supplications the most tender, the wrath of kings, the love in a girl's heart pleading with the headsman; then, and after all these, the deeply searching glance a man turns on his fellows as he mounts the last step of the scaffold. Life so dilated in this fragment of life that Don Juan shrank back; he walked up ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... way people do to the headsman. Why, when he found I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement. Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran there, and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tell it, when into the courtyard of the Castle of Edinburgh they brought the two noble young men forth to die. The sun had long risen, but the first flush of broad morning sunshine still lingered upon the low platform on which stood the block, and beside it the headsman sullenly waiting ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... killing Taj al-Muluk and would rather have put him in prison, till he should look into the truth of his words; but his Wazir said to him, "O King of the Age, it is my opinion that thou make haste to slay this gallows bird who dares debauch the daughters of Kings." So the King cried to the headsman, "Strike off his head; for he is a traitor." Accordingly, the herdsman took him and bound him fast and raised his hand to the Emirs, signing to consult them, a first and a second signal, thinking thereby to gain time in this matter;[FN52] but the King cried in anger to him, "How long wilt ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... More, for instance, on the scaffold, and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when, grasping her neck, she remarked, that it "was too slender to trouble the headsman much." During one part of the French Revolution, it became a fashion to leave some "mot" as a legacy; and the quantity of facetious last words spoken during that period would form a melancholy jest-book of a ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... women, and if you call from the window, I can shoot you dead before your voice can reach the street. Perhaps, though, you do not think of saving yourself, but of ensnaring me. Bah! as if the sight of the headsman would stop me now. Besides, I am prepared for flight. Have you looked at this house? It is not like other houses; it is double, and the room in which we stand has other foundations and walls from this one behind me which I guard with my pistol. Let ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... He was a tall, strong, handsome man, and his fate, villain as he was, excited much sympathy all over Germany. The ladies especially were loud in their regret that nothing could be done to save a hero so good-looking, and of adventures so romantic, from the knife of the headsman. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... would serve her save royal blood! My poor father says as sure as the lions and fleur-de-lis have come into a family, the headsman's axe has come ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... craziness of the scaffold a good pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself, as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not touch it. "Wait, my good friend, till I have removed my beard," he said, turning his eyes upwards to the official, "for it has ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... men beheaded in as many minutes. Employing a chair-coolie as a lay figure, John manages to give a satisfactory description of the modus operandi of a decapitation, and you let it go at that. A stalwart native is then introduced as the official headsman, and this functionary promptly tries to sell the heavy-bladed sword with which he says he struck off five heads earlier in the week. Probably three hundred malefactors are annually put to death on this spot, and it is said that the public executioner has been known to sell ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... predestined course of events. She is never placed, as the real tragic hero must be, before an alternative where the decision is big with fate. When the end comes there is nothing to do but let her renounce all earthly passion and face the headsman as a purified saint. So far as she is concerned, there is no action at all, but only the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... is a petition which, in its width, fits the close of the prayer better than does the translation of the Revised Version. There seems an echo of the words in Paul's noble confidence while the headsman's axe was so near, 'The Lord will deliver me from every evil work.' Entire exemption from evil of every sort, whether sin or sorrow, is the true end of our prayers, as it is the crown of God's purpose. Nothing less can satisfy our yearnings; nothing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... walking before, In their hands a great book open; Then there follows a soldier troop, With their drawn sabres flashing bright. At his right, the headsman goes, Holds in his hand the keen-edged sword; At his left goes his sister dear, And she weeps as the torrent pours, And she sobs ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... gives way to an enchanted hail in which are seen the most famous courtesans of ancient history—Phryne, Lais, Aspasia, Cleopatra, and Helen of Troy. The apparition of Marguerite appears to Faust, a red line encircling her neck, like the mark of a headsman's axe. We reach the end. The distraught maiden has slain her child, and now lies in prison upon her pallet of straw, awaiting death. Faust enters and tries to persuade her to fly with him. Her poor mind ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... but a step to the Chapel, and seeing that neither block nor headsman was in waiting he shrugged his shoulders ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... sandstone (like that which overlies coal) and the Rovuma in the distance. Didi is the name of a village whose headsman, Chombokea, is said to be a doctor; all the headmen pretend or are really doctors; however one, Fundindomba, came after me for medicine ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... who so scandalously abandoned him to the headsman, owes the existence of the party that still upholds his conduct to the dignified manner in which he faced death, a death at which the whole world "assisted," or might have done so. Catiline, we believe, has found no formal defender, but the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Master Walter; it shall be as I have said.—Call the headsman. They of Calais have made so many of my men to die, that they ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the Gladiolus Cruentus. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... preservation. The thing he went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw but the slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had argued, why console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days the headsman might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so might be to give her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by the thought that, in spite of all, it may have been pity that had so grievously moved her at their last meeting. Better, then, to wait; better for both their ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins. And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in its hue by the contrasting sootiness of the negro's body. Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to Captain Delano, nor, as he saw the two thus postured, could he resist the vagary, that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white a man at the block. But this was one of those antic conceits, appearing and vanishing in a breath, from which, perhaps, the best regulated ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... gates and the opposing fighters threaten to dash Danton's every hope of saving by reprieve his "dear one of treasured memory." Indeed, as we have seen, but for frenzied Pierre's maniacal slaughter of the headsman, the fatal blow would now be falling! Neither Danton nor his men, of course, know that. Theirs to struggle on, to confront and conquer fortune, never to despair! Within those iron souls is ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... painfully pressed upon it. Those words had told her that Pollux was a doomed man; that apostasy on her part could not have saved his life; that had he not fallen by the Syrian's dagger, he would have been but reserved for the headsman's axe. And had Pollux perished thus, there would have been none of that gleam of hope which, at least in Zarah's eyes, now rested upon ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... unfortunate mistress as the lowest of the low. For my part, I confess that she excited my interest, that false Madame Jenkins, who weeps in every corner, implores her husband as if he were the headsman, and is in danger of being sent about her business when all society believes her to be married, respectable, established for life. The others did nothing but laugh, especially the women. Dame! it is amusing when one is in service to see ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the ruling dynasty, domestic as well as foreign, which may be resident in the towns and cities. So the Jews of Barbary have their chiefs, and the slaves theirs. In Tunis a number of free coloured people, called Waraghleeah, emigrants from the Algerian oasis of Warklah, have also their chief or headsman. This chief has rather large and even discretionary powers, and can order his subjects to be imprisoned by the officers of the sovereign Government of the country. But, of course, this imperium in imperio is subject to the supervision of the supreme Government. The object ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... at his gentle craft all day - "No doubt you mean his Cal-craft," you amusingly will say - But, no—he didn't operate with common bits of string, He was a Public Headsman, which ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... prison and to death. Says Lamartine sublimely, "Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie, Madame Roland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierre recalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder upon his heart than the ax of the headsman." ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... place we came to the pretty town of Shachiaokai, on some undulating high ground well sheltered with trees. Justice had lately been here with her headsman and brought death to a gang of malefactors. Their heads, swinging in wooden cages, hung from the tower near the gateway. They could be seen by all persons passing along the road, and, with due consideration ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... through, I have had the best of the comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mental as physical; and I do not think my readers, who have all been under his lash, will blame me very much for giving the headsman a ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the brothers were at last able to perceive something. It was now half-past three, and the guillotine was nearly ready. The little stir which one vaguely espied yonder under the trees, was that of the headsman's assistants fixing the knife in position. A lantern slowly came and went, and five or six shadows danced over the ground. But nothing else could be distinguished, the square was like a large black pit, around which ever broke the waves of the noisy crowd which one ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... locks had ever been sacred to them as their honor. When the Roman Empire was invaded by the Goths and Vandals, a Helwyse—so runs the tale—was taken prisoner and brought before the Roman General. The latter summoned a barber and a headsman, and informed the captive that he might choose between forfeiting his head, and that which grew upon it. As to the precise words in which the Northern warrior couched his reply, historians vary; but they are agreed on the important ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... scene without whose eternal substance showed through the shadowy illusion of passing hansoms and omnibuses, like the sole fact of the street, the king's voice rising above the noises in tender caution to a heedless witness, "Have a care of the axe; have a care," and then gravely to the headsman: "When I stretch out my hands so, then—" The drums were ordered beaten, so that we could not hear more; and we went out, and crossed among the cabs and 'busses to the horse-guards sitting shrunken on their ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the guard to Sigurd, laughingly. "This villain likes not your news, 'tis clear. You have done your task, the headsman shall ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... inclined. Here I seemed to live in the midst of these wonderful intrigues of long ago. Documents passed through my hands whose very possession at one period meant capital danger, bringing up even now visions of block, axe, and masked headsman. It seemed strange to me that so sinister a man as Lord Rantremly, who, I had heard, cared for nothing but drink and gambling, should have desired to promote this historical research, and, indeed, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... and ancient stone houses are symbols of the inflexible state of society to which they belong. The dwellers are anchored to that condition. There is no "Westward ho" for them. Like father, like son. The hod-carrier's son carries hods. Even the headsman's office is hereditary. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his jailer not to let him budge from his cage except to be tortured (gehenne) and the duke wrote a piteous letter, praying for clemency and signing himself le pauvre Jacques. In vain: him, too, the headsman's axe sent to his account ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Alick completely recovered from the injury. But in the meantime, the bubble had burst, Sherrifmuir had been fought, Mar's army had been totally routed, the prisons in England and Scotland had been filled with his misguided followers, and the headsman and the hangman were beginning their ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... morn of his doom has succeeded the night, And the damp dews of death gather fast on his brow. He hears in the distance a faint muffled drum, And the low sullen boom of the death-tolling bell; The block is prepared, and the headsman is come, And the victim, bareheaded, walks ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... peril hanging over his guilty head— Felt that he could never hide him from the vengeance of the dead— Saw the heartless headsman smiling, and the axe, and heard the crowd Shouting curses on the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... shores of Lake Leman, and the Pass of St. Bernard, Cooper placed as a background for his plot based on the hard old feudal-times law—that (in the canton of Berne) the odious office of executioner or headsman was made a family inheritance. The efforts of the unhappy father and mother to save their son from such a fate make up the pathetic interest of "The Headsman," issued in 1833. The Hospice of St. Bernard so well described in this book was visited by the author ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... grin. "Certainly. The hands of the felon were amputated at the wrist. Usually with a headsman's ax, ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... quixotic. Presumably Peytel had committed the crime in a fit of jealous passion, to punish his wife's adultery. A curious drawing by Balzac exists in the first volume of his general correspondence, in which Gavarni is represented mocking the headsman; and, accompanying the design, is an autograph letter to Dutacq, managing director of the Siecle, referring to an article on the question published by the ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... stroke. And now, as the spear of the retiarius was not a weapon to inflict instant and certain death, there stalked into the arena a grim and fatal form, brandishing a short, sharp sword, and with features utterly concealed beneath its vizor. With slow and measured steps, this dismal headsman approached the gladiator, still kneeling—laid the left hand on his humbled crest—drew the edge of the blade across his neck—turned round to the assembly, lest, in the last moment, remorse should come upon them; the dread signal continued the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... early hour, the chains and bolts of the cell were heard to clash and groan, and Damian was startled from a broken sleep, which he had not enjoyed for above two hours. His eyes were bent on the slowly opening door, as if he had expected the headsman and his assistants; but the jailer ushered in a stout man in a pilgrim's habit. "Is it a priest whom you bring me, warden?" ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... And since now this fair pretence, This hypocritical deceit, In my power at last doth lie, Wherefore my revenge postpone For the sorrows I have known Through her fault? Yes, she shall die By the bloody headsman's hand. [To a Soldier. Bring her hither in my name. Let her punishment and shame Be a terror to the land. Let the palace she thought sweet But her scaffold scene present. ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... Juan; he saw it thinking, upbraiding, condemning, uttering accusations, threatening doom; it cried aloud, and gnashed upon him. All anguish that shakes human souls was gathered there; supplications the most tender, the wrath of kings, the love in a girl's heart pleading with the headsman; then, and after all these, the deeply searching glance a man turns on his fellows as he mounts the last step of the scaffold. Life so dilated in this fragment of life that Don Juan shrank back; he walked up and down the ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... evil' is a petition which, in its width, fits the close of the prayer better than does the translation of the Revised Version. There seems an echo of the words in Paul's noble confidence while the headsman's axe was so near, 'The Lord will deliver me from every evil work.' Entire exemption from evil of every sort, whether sin or sorrow, is the true end of our prayers, as it is the crown of God's purpose. Nothing less can satisfy our yearnings; nothing less can fulfil the divine desire for us. Nothing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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
... her—kss-kss—what a laugh we'll have." And the more they gave him to drink, the more he told, speaking of his unfortunate mistress as the lowest of the low. For my part, I confess that she excited my interest, that false Madame Jenkins, who weeps in every corner, implores her husband as if he were the headsman, and is in danger of being sent about her business when all society believes her to be married, respectable, established for life. The others did nothing but laugh, especially the women. Dame! it is amusing when one is in service ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... stopped, Enough of room remained in every zone, And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne. Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacks Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped) 'Twas made worth having by the headsman's axe. Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking, And crumbled all to powder ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Lady Jane to Robert Dudley, all the traitors who had conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband were led to the headsman's block; while Robert Dudley was among those who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of their cells, where they may be seen to this ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... too late—Talhouet was dead: and, as he lifted his eyes, he saw in the hand of the headsman the bleeding head of his friend—and then, in the nobility of his heart, he felt that, one being dead, they all should die. That not one of them would accept a pardon which arrived a head too late. He looked around him; Du Couedic mounted ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... with bowed head and the headsman brought the knife down across the back of his neck, but the knife was nicked and the neck was ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... to me?" cried the Duke. "Scorn! have I no headsman whose axe is as sharp as Harold's? and the neck of a captive is not ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of an audience, awaiting a drama composed of the strokes of chance, the faces of the actors, the circulation of coin, and the motion of the croupier's rake, much as a silent, motionless crowd watches the headsman in the Place de Greve. A tall, thin man, in a threadbare coat, held a card in one hand, and a pin in the other, to mark the numbers of Red or Black. He seemed a modern Tantalus, with all the pleasures of his epoch at his lips, a hoardless miser drawing in imaginary gains, a sane species of lunatic ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... very hard, my lord, I cannot choose My way of cooking. I shall laugh, I vow, In the grim headsman's face, when I remember That I am dying for my lady's love. I leave no one to shed a tear for me; Father nor mother, kith nor kin, have I, To say, "Poor Ritta!" o'er my lifeless clay. They all have gone before me, and 'twere well If ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... for never was any sect persecuted more systematically, or with more relentlessness, than these little-offending heretics. Protestants and Catholics, Anglicans and Calvinists, so ready at all times to commit one another to the flames and to the headsman, found in this matter common ground, upon which all could heartily unite for the grand purpose of extirpating error. When, out of the quiet of our own times, we look back upon the terrors of the Tower, and the smoke and glare of Smithfield, we think with mingled ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... assembly at which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... he laboured at his gentle craft all day - "No doubt you mean his Cal-craft," you amusingly will say - But, no—he didn't operate with common bits of string, He was a Public Headsman, ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... notorious. It is said that the best blades will in the hands of an expert swordsman cut through the dead bodies of three men, laid one upon the other, at a blow. The swords of the Shogun used to be tried upon the corpses of executed criminals; the public headsman was entrusted with the duty, and for a "nose medicine," or bribe of two bus (about three shillings), would substitute the weapon of a private individual for that of his Lord. Dogs and beggars, lying helpless by the roadside, not ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... immediately sprang into the rigging, and on looking out, he saw a whale spouting about a mile to windward. In less than a minute after the people had come on deck half dressed, the boats started away with six men in each, including the headsman and boat's steerer. The captain went as headsman in one, and the first mate in the other. The water bubbled and hissed under the bows of the boats, as the eager crews urged ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... crime? I give you my life in exchange for my son's disgrace. Does my country need a victim? I have lived for my country's glory, and I can die contented to satisfy its laws, sure that, if you blame me, you will not despise; sure that the hands that give me to the headsman will scatter flowers over my grave. Thus I confess all. I, a soldier, look round amongst a nation of soldiers; and in the name of the star which glitters on my breast I dare the fathers of ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... information asked, and agreed to cede these lands back to the crown, were led into the white tent, where an ample feast awaited them. Those who refused were dismissed with frowns into the red tent, where they found awaiting them the headsman's fatal block and axe. The hapless guests ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... hoped that he might find shelter till the crowd should disperse. In the meantime, another discussion on his fate took place in the Convention. It was proposed to deal with him as he had dealt with better men, to put him out of the pale of the law, and to deliver him at once without any trial to the headsman. But the humanity which, since the ninth of Thermidor, had generally directed the public councils restrained the deputies ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ill-omened platform of dark greasy boards newly fastened together, but evidently used often before for the same purpose. It was buttressed up against their wall, and extended a clear twenty feet out, with a broad wooden stair leading down from the further side. In the centre stood a headsman's block, all haggled at the top, and ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... can be. There was a great heap of it. It looked just like rags soaked in blood. Logre, the hunchback, you know, put one of the pieces over his shoulder. He looked like a headsman. You may be sure this is ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... father of his accuser with the other three Emperors came to see him die; they stood at corners relentlessly smoothing their beards and curling their moustaches with their right fists and crying "A Morire!" Periglio in chains was led on, blindfolded. The solemn headsman followed, carrying his axe, and, as the boy left off turning the handle of the mechanical piano, the cornet blasted a broken-hearted minor ninth over the last chord of the funeral march and prolonged it till—well, after all it was a mistake; Periglio ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... and fatal mound! That oft hast heard the death-axe sound, As on the noblest of the land, Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he found I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement. Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran there, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was presently discovered who agreed simply for what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of the building ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... not by being sharers in it, but by due administration of the laws of it." His theory of government was a consistent one. He had the misfortune not to understand that the time had been fast passing away for its assertion. The headsman did his office; and a deep groan went up ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the headsman came to Vagn. Now, as he had a dislike to this brave viking, Thorkel rushed at him, holding his sword in both hands. But Vagn threw himself suddenly at Thorkel's feet, whereupon the headsman tripped over him. In a moment Vagn was on his ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... come to you." Upon this Lucius, returning his fondness, replied, "Do not be melancholy on that account; I can remedy that." Ordering therefore, forthwith, one of those condemned to die to be brought to the feast, together with the headsman and axe, he asked the youth if he wished to see him executed. The boy answering that he did, Lucius commanded the executioner to cut off his neck; and this several historians mention; and Cicero, indeed, in his dialogue de Senectute, introduces Cato relating it himself. But Livy says, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... handsome man, and his fate, villain as he was, excited much sympathy all over Germany. The ladies especially were loud in their regret that nothing could be done to save a hero so good-looking, and of adventures so romantic, from the knife of the headsman. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the Isthmus, the Spanish viceroys passed with their rich trains, there on some unknown knoll Balboa reached four hundred years ago the climax of a career that began with stowing away in a cask and ended under the headsman's ax—no end of it, down to the "Forty-niners" going hopefully out and returning filled with gold or disease, or leaving their bones here in the jungle before they really were "Forty-niners"; on down to the railroad days with men wading in swamps with survey kits, and frequently lying down to ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... you shall see, this must not seem devised; I will take any man with me, and go; Yea, for pure hate of them that hate him: yea, Lay hold upon the headsman and bid strike Here on my neck; if they will have him die, Why, I will die too: queens have died this way For less things than his love is. Nay, I know They want no blood; I will bring swords to boot For dear ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... harmless English folk the devil's tricks which they have picked up amongst the savages. The Lord help Monmouth's men should they be beaten! These vermin are more to be feared than hangman's cord or headsman's axe.' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... really haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful brows. "It's not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or an ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... is so, there is sometimes granted to the man, who has been faithful in his adherence to Jesus Christ, a gleam of sunshine at eventime, which foretells Heaven's welcome and 'Well done!', before it is uttered. He was no self-righteous braggart, but a very rigid judge of himself, who, close by the headsman's block that ended his life, said: 'I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith.' 'Put on the whole armour of God,' and when the time comes to put it off, you will have a peaceful ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late! And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... understand the feelings of Marie Stuart when she arrayed herself in her best garments for her execution: it was simply the heroism of supreme vanity, the desire to fascinate if possible the very headsman. One can understand any beautiful woman being as brave as she. Harder than death itself would it have seemed to her had she been compelled to appear on the scaffold looking hideous. She was resolved ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the secret tells, Not that remorse my bosom swells, But to assure my soul that none Shall ever wed with Marmion. Had fortune my last hope betrayed, This packet, to the King conveyed, Had given him to the headsman's stroke, Although my heart that instant broke. Now, men of death, work forth your will, For I can suffer, and be still; And come he slow, or come he fast, It is but ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... hushed the senates Vane's large presence filled. In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell? Where art thou, Freedom? Look! in Sidney's cell! There still as stately stands the living Truth, Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth. Her forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown, The headsman's block her last dread altar-stone, No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope, Far from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope. Millennial morns the tombs of Kedron gild, The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild,— Till ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bare, and a simple white tunic, the neck of which was already open, showed that ho had assumed the garments which were to serve his last turn. A tall muscular Nubian slave, who considered himself obviously as the principal person in the procession, bore on his shoulder a large heavy headsman's axe, and, like a demon waiting on a sorcerer, stalked step for step after his victim. The rear of the procession was closed by a band of four priests, each of whom chanted from time to time the devotional psalm which was thundered forth on the occasion; and another of slaves, armed with ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... this, John Nevil!' I only ask, 'Is it wise?'... Sir Francis Drake is commander here. Four years ago he swore that you were too merciful, that in your place he would have played hangsman to me more blithely than he played headsman ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... gathered the same crowds, and protested against the same sins. Rearing the same standard, they summoned men from formality and hypocrisy to righteousness and reality. They incurred the same hatred on the part of the religious leaders of their nation, and suffered violent deaths—the one beneath the headsman's blade in the dungeons of Herod's castle, the other on the cross, at the hand of Pilate and the Roman soldiers. Each suffered a death of violence at the hand of men whom he had lived to succour; each died when the life-blood throbbed with young manhood's prime, and ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... proceeded with amazing rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee. The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... sleeping place we came to the pretty town of Shachiaokai, on some undulating high ground well sheltered with trees. Justice had lately been here with her headsman and brought death to a gang of malefactors. Their heads, swinging in wooden cages, hung from the tower near the gateway. They could be seen by all persons passing along the road, and, with due consideration for the feelings of the bereaved relatives, they were hung near enough for the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... 'a house not made with hands,' a statelier edifice, 'eternal in the heavens.' To die in Christ is not to die, but becomes a mere change of condition and of place, to be with Him, which is far 'better.' So an Apostle who was coming within measurable distance of his own martyrdom, even whilst the headsman's block was all but in his sight, said: 'He hath abolished death,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... live in the midst of these wonderful intrigues of long ago. Documents passed through my hands whose very possession at one period meant capital danger, bringing up even now visions of block, axe, and masked headsman. It seemed strange to me that so sinister a man as Lord Rantremly, who, I had heard, cared for nothing but drink and gambling, should have desired to promote this historical research, and, indeed, I soon found he felt nothing but contempt ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... trade, Alike was famous for his arm and blade. One day a prisoner Justice had to kill Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. "Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... suspiciously like his own. All through, I have been comparing myself with our satirist, and all through, I have had the best of the comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mental as physical; and I do not think my readers, who have all been under his lash, will blame me very much for giving the headsman a ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand, a powerful, able nobility; on the other, a strong, independent peasantry,—a combination full of pitfalls for a weak ruler, but with equal promise of great things under the master hand. His father had cowed the stubborn nobles with the headsman's axe. Gustav Adolf drew them to him and imbued them with his own spirit. He found them a contentious party within the state; he left them its strongest props in the conduct of public affairs. Nor was it always with persuasion ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... this time what are called among whalemen "boatscrew-watches." That is, instead of the sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat's crew, the "headsman" (always one of the mates) excepted. To the officers, this plan gives uninterrupted repose—"all-night-in," as they call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... directly lowered to receive them; and in two minutes from the time of first observing the whale, three or four boats are down, and are darting through the water with their utmost speed toward their intended victim, perhaps accompanied with a song from the headsman, who urges the quick and powerful plying of the oar, with ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with governing of men." "No weakness, Danton," he said to himself on the scaffold, as his heart began to sink within him as he thought of his wife. His last words were to Samson the headsman: "Thou wilt show my head to the people, it is worth showing"; words worthy of the brother of Mirabeau, who died saying, "I wish I could leave my head behind me, France needs it just now"; a man fiery-real, as has been said, genuine to the core, with many sins, yet lacking that greatest ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... You have chained and fettered God himself! You have already put one God to death on the cross; I am the second, and you have given me into the hands of the headsman. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... if you had been Sir Walter, instead of sailing to England where you knew that a headsman's axe awaited you, you would have coasted by the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and dropped off quietly where is the home of the canvas-back and the terrapin! Just stepped into one of the jolly-boats and peacefully drifted ashore on a ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... grassy mounds, shield meeting shield, Stood many Northland sons with swords in hand, One circle standing close within another Unto the top. Upon the judgment seat, A thunder cloud, thy brother Helge sat,— A pallid headsman with a dusky look. And next to him, a seeming grown up child, Sat Halfdan,—-thoughtless, playing with his sword. Then I arose, and, said: "War waiting stands Within thy borders, beating on the shield,— Thy kingdom now, king Helge, is in peril; Give me my sister, and I'll give to thee ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... SITUATION—An able-bodied, middle-aged man, without encumbrance, who can have an undeniable character from his last situation, as headsman, hangman, and general executioner. He is accustomed to the use of thumbikins and the most approved and fashionable modes of torture; and officiated for many years as superintendent of the wheel of a foreign prince, renowned for the neatness of his rack. Drawing and quartering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Brandon, was of a general nature, and the possibility of his death had no place in her thoughts. Nevertheless, for the second time, Brandon had been condemned to die for her sake. The king's seal had stamped the warrant for the execution, and the headsman had sharpened his ax and could almost count the golden fee for ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... a board; Suits of armor, shield, and sword; Kerchief with its bloody stain; Ghosts of the untimely slain; Thunder-clap and clanking chain; Headsman's block and shining axe; Thumbscrews, crucifixes, racks; Midnight-tolling chapel bell, Heard across the gloomy fell,— These, and other pleasant facts, Are the properties that shine In the Legends of ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... the famous Chancellor, who preserved his humor and wit to the last moment, when he came to be executed on Tower-hill, the headsman demanded his upper garment as his fee; "Ah! friend," said he, taking off his cap, "that, I think, is my ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... all clashed so discordantly with the scene in her memory that for an instant she grew faint and clung to the curtains between which she was passing. That death should leave so little trace, that the spot which one night was occupied by a headsman, the next, should hold a bride, made her fancy reel with horror even while ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... in prison, till he should look into the truth of his words; but his Wazir said to him, "O King of the Age, it is my opinion that thou make haste to slay this gallows bird who dares debauch the daughters of Kings." So the King cried to the headsman, "Strike off his head; for he is a traitor." Accordingly, the herdsman took him and bound him fast and raised his hand to the Emirs, signing to consult them, a first and a second signal, thinking thereby ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... While still in the meridian of life he died and was buried, so say the chronicles, in a foreign land. He died in time to escape the grasp of the law, for he was accused of crimes which would have given him to the headsman. ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... where once was the home of the ill-fated Earl of Derwentwater, who was beheaded in 1716 for espousing the Pretender's cause. It is related that before his execution on Tower Hill he closely viewed the block, and finding a rough place which might offend his neck, he bade the headsman chip it off; this done, he cheerfully placed his head upon it, gave the sign, and died: his estates were forfeited and settled by the king on Greenwich Hospital. Castle Hill rises boldly on the shore above Derwent Isle, where there is a pretty residence, and every few ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... and lonely shore; the two comrades drank to each other for the last time, shared the sacrament, and embracing, said their farewells. Doughty proved that if he could not live a true man he could die like a gentleman; the headsman did his work, and Drake pronounced the solemn sentence, "Lo! this ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... he said, "think of what you're doing to this great capital, of which we are all so justly proud. The Tower has become a disused place, and its historic hill no more reverberates to the merry chopping of the headsman's axe. Temple Bar has gone, and long ago have vanished the heads that used to look wistfully down on the passing chairmen. The chairmen themselves have sped into eternity, and in their place circles the Hansom cab. No more does the ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... from the street, Judge Pike's street, and from the town, Judge Pike's town. It swept him from the earth, abolished him, denied him the right to breathe the common air, to be seen of men; and, at once a headsman's stroke and an excommunication, destroyed him, soul and body, thus rebuking the silly Providence that had created him, and repairing Its mistake by annihilating him. This hurling Olympian gesture smote the street; the ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... and abounded in possibilities. To save himself for life and work was worth playing at servility. He could hardly see the pettiness in a James, in his parasites, in his Ministers, for absorption in their one essential quality, their ability, as holding headsman and gaolers in a leash, to keep alive or kill, to bind or let loose. To this age James is an awkward, ludicrous pedant. The spectacle of Ralegh's veneration is exasperating. For Ralegh he was a symbol of sovereign authority, a mysterious keeper of the scales of fate. He represented ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... default and that the evil-doer exacteth according to his ill- nature.[FN41] Yet I hope from my lord the King and from his benevolence that he suffer the Sworder make over my corpse to my menials for burial, and so shall thy slave be thy sacrifice." Hereat the Monarch commanded the Headsman do as he was desired, and the man, accompanied by the royal pages, took Haykar, whom they had stripped of his outer raiment, and led him away to execution. But when he was certified of coming death, he sent tidings thereof to his wife, Shaghaftini[FN42] hight, adding, "Do thou forthright ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... bade bind me hand and foot, and put me into a chest and said to the sworder, "Take charge of this fellow, and go off with him to the waste lands about the city; then draw thy scymitar and slay him, and leave him to feed the beasts and birds." So the headsman fared forth with me and when he was in the midst of the desert, he took me out of the chest (and I with both hands pinioned and both feet fettered) and was about to bandage my eyes before striking off my head. But I wept with exceeding weeping until I made ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Mauny interceded for them with all his might, even telling the King that such an execution would tarnish his honor, and that reprisals would be made on his own garrisons; and all the nobles joined in entreating pardon for the citizens, but still without effect; and the headsman had been actually sent for, when Queen Philippa, her eyes streaming with tears, threw herself on her knees amongst the captives, and said, 'Ah, gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea, with much danger, to see you, I have never ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that Kwan-yu was prepared to die. In fact, on the night before the final casting he had a dream in which he saw himself kneeling before the headsman and cautioning him not to forget the binding agreement ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... pity for the youth, The headsman would not rightly ply The weapon, or the gods in truth Had ordered that he should not die, Soon to the king there came report The sword would not destroy his son, The council held thereon was short, The king's look ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... not have been so very bad,' said the younger journeyman, 'if one only had to suffer death and nothing worse. But these Swedes torture people as the very headsman himself would be ashamed to do. My father died by the dreadful "Swedish Drink," and then they took my eldest brother, and—ah! it's ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... Revolutionary Tribunal. He could be seen by glimpses between the guardsmen's hats, sitting with hands tied behind his back, his head bared and swaying from side to side, his face to the cart's tail. The headsman stood beside him lolling against the rail. The passers-by had stopped to look and were telling each other it was likely one of the fellows who starved the people, and staring with eyes of indifference. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... would give him whatso he sought and have patience with him, till he could pay me. One night, I foregathered with certain of my friends and we sat down to liquor: so we drank and were merry and played at Tab;[FN118] and we made one of us Wazir and another Sultan and a third Torchbearer or Headsman.[FN119] Presently, there came in upon us a spunger, without bidding, and we went on playing, whilst he played with us. Then quoth the Sultan to the Wazir, "Bring the Parasite who cometh in to the folk, without ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... professor of the headsman's trade, Alike was famous for his arm and blade. One day a prisoner Justice had to kill Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. His falchion lightened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Who, headsman, unto thee this power O'er me could give? Thou com'st for me at midnight-hour. Be merciful, and let me live! Is morrow's dawn not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins. And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... sobbed a single sob and fell a-swoon; and the headsman's heart was moved to ruth for me and he exclaimed, 'By Allah, this is no murtherer's face!' But the Chief said, 'Smite his neck.' So they seated me on the rug of blood and bound my eyes; after which the sworder drew his sword and asking leave of the Wali, was about to strike ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... mind, the right of things or the wrong of things, could not accurately weigh chances or possibilities. For him only two alternatives presented themselves, the death of Ferriss or the death of Lloyd. He could see no compromise, could imagine no escape. It was as though a headsman with ready axe stood at his elbow, awaiting his commands. And, besides all this, he had long since passed the limit—though perhaps he did not know it himself—where he could see anything but the point he had determined to gain, the goal he had determined to reach. His mind was ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... beheaded in as many minutes. Employing a chair-coolie as a lay figure, John manages to give a satisfactory description of the modus operandi of a decapitation, and you let it go at that. A stalwart native is then introduced as the official headsman, and this functionary promptly tries to sell the heavy-bladed sword with which he says he struck off five heads earlier in the week. Probably three hundred malefactors are annually put to death on this spot, and it is said that the public executioner has been known to sell twice ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... for a few minutes to bleed; there was no time lost, however, for there were several hanging in each line, and one was always ready. It was let down to the ground, and there came the "headsman," whose task it was to sever the head, with two or three swift strokes. Then came the "floorsman," to make the first cut in the skin; and then another to finish ripping the skin down the center; and then half a ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... joints, he still had something of the lithe, strenuous carriage of his youth. In his dignity of manner, there almost seemed to you a glimpse of the gallant age when forbears had gone whistling to the headsman. He was of a line which counted in English history, which among its women had a Lady Jane Grey. His mother, with the mother's wistful love and pride, had traced that line for him. He was not deeply moved, unless by the romance and the tragedy ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... For the headsman's axe seemed to be glimmering in the black darkness ahead, and he shuddered as he recalled once more what he ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... "Did ten or twenty persons, or yet more, Arrive, they were imprisoned and put by; And every day one only from the store Of victims was brought out by lot to die, In fane by Orontea built, before An altar raised to Vengeance; and to ply As headsman, and dispatched the unhappy men, One was by lot selected from ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... God wot; 'Tis nowise great men's fashion in French land To clap a headsman's taberd ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to go,' he said, and smiled, 'therefore I must take my leave of you.' When the friends had retired he addressed himself to prayer, having first announced that he died in the faith of the Church of England. When his prayer was done, he took off his night-gown and doublet, and called to the headsman to show him the axe. The man hesitated, and Raleigh cried, 'I prithee, let me see it. Dost thou think that I am afraid of it?' Having passed his finger along the edge, he gave it back, and turning to the Sheriff, smiled, and said, ''Tis a sharp medicine, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... gnaws the guns, And shattered shells are but the runs Where warring insects cope; And all the headsman's racks and blades And pincers, tools of tyrants' aids, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... government knows not how to get rid of them, and remains a great sea power in spite of itself. I ventured to suggest mustering out, but neither the King nor any Minister of State was able to form a conception of any method of reduction and retrenchment but that of the public headsman. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... of an hundred Moslems, carried them to the King and set them between his hands. He bade cut their throats. Accordingly they slaughtered them all forthwith, one after another, till there was none left but Nur al-Din, whom the headsman had left to the last, in pity of his tender age and slender shape. When the King saw him, he knew him right well and said to him, "Art thou not Nur al-Din, who was with us before?" Said he, "I was never with thee: and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... other, as the Red Indians have done, off the face of the earth. They lived these Norsemen, not to live—they lived to die. For what cared they? Death—what was death to them? what it was to the Jomsburger Viking, who, when led out to execution, said to the headsman: "Die! with all pleasure. We used to question in Jomsburg whether a man felt when his head was off? Now I shall know; but if I do, take care, for I shall smite thee with my knife. And meanwhile, spoil not this long hair of mine; ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... heads, and deprecate our wrath by the precipitation of their crane-neck quarterings. Treason they feel to be their crime; each individual carter feels himself under the ban of confiscation and attainder: his blood is attainted through six generations, and nothing is wanting but the headsman and his axe, the block and the sawdust, to close up the vista of his horrors. What! shall it be within benefit of clergy to delay the king's message on the high road?—to interrupt the great respirations, ebb or flood, of the national intercourse—to endanger the safety ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... brother returned in his stead to the judge, thanked him for having given him permission to perform a duty required by filial piety, and said he was then ready to die. He knelt with bowed head, and the headsman brought the knife down across the back of his neck, but the knife was nicked and the neck was left unscathed. A second knife, and a third of finer steel, were brought and tried by headsmen who were accustomed to sever heads clean off at one stroke. Having spoiled their best blades without ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... "great man struggling with adversity was a sight that the gods looked on with pleasure." Here, indeed, was adversity, and here was true greatness struggling against it; but to a mere mortal it was a heart-rending sight. The ship's deck looked like a place of execution, and we only wanted the headsman, his block, and his ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... evidence that the hurdy-gurdy sets the world to dancing—like the fiddle in the Turkish tale where even the headsman forgot his business—despite such evidence there are persons who affect to despise its melody. These claim such perceptivity of the outer ear and such fineness of the channels that the tune is but ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... This caress of the king, however harmless in itself, had in it for her something dismal and dreadful. It was the involuntary, instinctive touch of the headsman, who examines the neck of his victim, and searches on it for the place where he will make the stroke. Thus had Anne Boleyn once put her tender white hands about her slender neck, and said to the headsman, brought ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... awoke Athalie out of a distressing dream. She dreamed of a young lady who had murdered her rival, and was led to the place of execution. Already she knelt on the scaffold, the headsman with his naked sword stood behind her, the judge read the sentence and said, "With God there is pardon." The ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... these six honorable burghers, who of their own free will have put themselves at your mercy to save the others." The king gnashed his teeth, saying, "Sir Walter, hold your peace; let them fetch hither my headsman; the people of Calais have been the death of so many of my men that it is but meet that yon fellows die also." Then, with great humility, the noble queen, who was very nigh her delivery, threw herself on her knees at the feet of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sorrow and regret; nevertheless, he dreaded the humiliation that would follow a violation of the oath he had sworn in the presence of his court; so, summoning an executioner, he immediately gave the fatal order; and John was forthwith beheaded in the dungeon. The headsman returned, carrying a dish in which lay the ghastly trophy of the corrupt queen's vengeance. The bloody gift was delivered to Salome, who carried it with inhuman triumph to her mother. Some of John's disciples came, secured the corpse, laid it in a tomb; and bore the tidings of his ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... moment! See! I loved her!' I saw the moonlight glisten on his tears, Great, long, slow tears they were; and then—my God— As his face lifted and his head sank back Beseeching me—I saw a crimson thread Circling his throat, as though the headsman's axe Had cloven it with one blow, so shrewd, so keen, The head had slipped not from the trunk. I gasped; And, as he pleaded, stretching his head back, The wound, O like a second awful mouth, The wound began to gape. I tore my cloak Out of his clutch. My keys fell with ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... frets this morning, and does turn her eyes upon me, as people on their headsman; she does chafe, and kiss, and chafe again, and clap my cheeks; she's ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... "I have no occasion to fight. I could kill you by a look if I had any mind to do it. I will tell you what it is, youngster; why should I kill you? I can see a red line round your neck—the guillotine is waiting for you. Yes, you will end in the Place de Greve. You are the headsman's property! there is no escape for you. You belong to a vendita of the Carbonari. You are ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... hour, may I be terrified by midnight spectres and hag-ridden, may my body be smitten with leprosy, my eyes with blindness, my tongue with dumbness, my bones by rottenness, if ever I speak one syllable to anybody, be it priest, or child, or father, or condemning judge, or threatening headsman, of anything I have seen, heard or learnt in this place, or write it down with my hand or put anybody on the track of it! May every drop of my blood become curse-laden; may my remotest posterity anathematize me; may I awake in my grave and go about again as a spectre, if ever ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... of what I hear is true, rogue," answered Ithobal savagely, "the tormentor and the headsman alone could satisfy all my debt to you. Say, merchant, what return have you made me for that sackful of gold which you bore hence some ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... wars, the poor prisoner was immediately carried by an escort into the presence of the Caliph, who put the alternative in his power of either, on the instant, renouncing his religion, or submitting to the axe of the headsman. Demetrius told his tale with a noble simplicity; and his youth, his open countenance, and stately bearing, so far gained on the heart of Abubeker, that, on his refusal to embrace Mahomedism, he begged of him seriously to consider of his situation, and ordered a delay of the sentence, which ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... "I have deserted my charge—the banner entrusted to me is lost. When the headsman and block are prepared, the head and trunk are ready ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... in his account of Mary Queen of Scots, quotes this story. After mentioning that the headsman remained alone with the Queen's decapitated corpse, he adds: "He then took off her shoes and handled her as he pleased. It is suspected that he treated her in the same way as that miserable muleteer, in the Hundred Stories of the Queen of Navarre, treated the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... executioner that he would give the signal by lifting up his hand, and 'then,' he said, 'fear not, but strike home.' He next laid himself down, but was asked by the executioner to alter the position of the head. 'So the heart be right,' he replied, 'it is no matter which way the head lies.' The headsman became uncertain and tremulous when the signal was given, whereupon Ealeigh exclaimed, 'Why dost thou not strike? Strike, man!' and by two blows that gallant, witty, and richly-stored head was severed from the body. He was in his sixty-fifth year. He had the night before composed ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to Paris, whither he was accompanied by the whole of the royal party, which was moreover augmented by the presence of the Duc de Bouillon, who, according to Bassompierre, was as much at his ease, and as arrogant in his deportment, as though he had never incurred the risk of the headsman as a rebel and a traitor. The Court dined at La Roquette, and it was near dusk when they reached the Barriere St. Antoine, where they were met by the corporate bodies. Henry himself rode on horseback, preceded by eight hundred nobles in full dress, and followed by four Princes of the Blood, in ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the work of a moment to order up a brazier, a pair of pincers, a poker, a headsman and an axe. The instruments of torture waste no time in getting red-hot; and we anticipate the worst. Joseph, however, who has ignored these preparations and maintained an attitude of superbly indifferent aloofness, suddenly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... gathering up his oar gave the countryman the right of way. The courage of the latter rose as the strange danger passed, and as far as he could be heard, he continued to exult in the wildest excesses of insult: 'Ah-heigh! brutal executioner! Ah, hideous headsman!' Da capo. I now know that these people never intended to do more than quarrel, and no doubt they parted as well pleased as if they had actually carried broken heads from the encounter. But at the time I felt affronted and trifled with by the result, for my disappointments ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... give a health, my masters!" cried a tall archer, whom no one had hitherto noticed, rising in one corner of the room. "It is—The headsman of Calais, and may he ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Walter; it shall be as I have said.—Call the headsman. They of Calais have made so many of my men to die, that they must ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... barely jerked his Mauser pistol from his holster when all was ready for the decapitation of their guide. But as the gleaming blade flashed above the head of the little man in blue, Jack laid the muzzle true for his ribs and pulled the trigger. The heavy bullet tore its way through the headsman's body, and with a wild cry he pitched forward on the captive's prostrate form. His three companions vanished into the jungle beside them as Jack ran forward. He did not dare to fire at them, for he might have struck Me Dain. Not one of them rose, but darted ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... block, he said, "If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down here in the same cause." he said, "if he had not taken the sacrament the day before, he would have knocked down Williamson, the lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill usage of him. He took the axe and felt it, and asked the headsman how many blows he had given Lord Kilmarnock; and gave him three guineas. Two clergymen, who attended him, coming up, he said, "No, gentlemen, I believe you have already done me all the service you can." Then he went to the corner of the scaffold, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... their death?" gasped Francesco, rising to his feet and eyeing his cousin with mingled wonder and anger. "You sent men of such families as these to the headsman, without a trial? I think, Gian Maria, that you must be mad if so rashly you can shed such ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Democracy. The result, however, is all the same. In certain outlying portions of the mighty Empire or Republic or Democracy, as you will, further mobilisation of French subjects was taking place, although in these outlying dominions the forces were not mobilised but volunteered. That is to say, the headsman or chief of a certain village, lying somewhere between the Equator and ten degrees North latitude, was requested by those in authority to furnish so many volunteers. The word being thus passed round, volunteers presented themselves, voluntarily. Among them was Ouk. Ouk knew, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... was bitterly disappointed. This was Boxtel, who had bribed the headsman to let him have Van Baerle's clothes, believing that he would thus obtain the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... his benefactors by consigning them all to prison and to death. Says Lamartine sublimely, "Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie, Madame Roland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierre recalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder upon his heart than the ax of the headsman." ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... man and make him even mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights and swashbucklers and outlaws, were regarded ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... thee pours! Oh, I am nothing, nothing unto thee, But, husband, think how dear thou art to me! Think how the path of glory on thee opes, Thou dearest lodestar of a nation's hopes! Shall blood of kings be but the headsman's sport? Is life a toy wherewith thy ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... his executioner. His gleaming sword flashed through the air, and in an instant the dissevered head of Cordova rolled in the dust. The headsman grasped the gory trophy by the hair, and raising it high above his ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... toes, others had received gashes in their faces, or arms, or legs, but they had seldom long been laid up, and had willingly again returned to their work. The term "putter," it should be understood, includes the specific distinction of the "headsman," "half-marrow," and "foal." The "headsman," taking the part of conductor, pushes behind. The "half-marrows" drag at the sides with ropes; while a "foal" precedes the train, also dragging by a rope. Mark, however, was not very long employed in ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... untied (or, according to Matthew, 'bore') his lord's sandals. How beautiful is the lowliness of that strong nature! He stood erect in the face of priests and tetrarchs, and furious women, and the headsman with his sword, but he ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... man,—hope, surprise, bewilderment, disgust, facetiousness. The people in New England finally become facetious about spring. This is the last stage: it is the most dangerous. When a man has come to make a jest of misfortune, he is lost. "It bores me to die," said the journalist Carra to the headsman at the foot of the guillotine: "I would like to have seen the continuation." One is also interested to see how spring is going ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Gerber, Fiscal General," who, as head of Prussian Fiscals (kind of Public Prosecutor, or supreme Essence of Bailiffs, Catchpoles and Grand-Juries all in one), wears a red cloak,—gave the Prince a dreadful start. Red cloak is the Berlin Hangman's or Headsman's dress; and poor Friedrich had the idea his end had summarily come in this manner. Soon seeing it was otherwise, his spirits recovered, perhaps rose ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... this preacher of the hollowness of the real, wondered where were the sable trappings of woe, the hideous envisagement of them that are condemned with mortuary symbols in garbs of painted flame to the stake, faggot, axe, and headsman. None of these were visible, and the gentle spirit of the prisoner became ruffled, alarmed. He expected violence but instead they offered churchly music. Restless, his nerves fretted, he asked himself the reason. He did not fear death, for he despised life; he had no earthly ties; his ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... glad to see his youngest son, and very anxious to taste his apples. But when he found out that they were not good, and thought that they were more for poisoning him, he sent immediately for the headsman to behead his youngest son, who was taken away there and then in a carriage. But instead of the headsman taking his head off, he took him to a forest not far from the town, because he had pity on him, ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... [pointing to a person who held his hat and wig] somewhat more for you. Let me lie down once, to see how the block fits me." This he did. Then, kneeling down again, and uttering a short prayer with the executioner, he arose, and undressed himself for execution, the headsman assisting him. After which, the Earl desired the executioner to take notice, that "when he heard the words 'sweet Jesus!' then he should do his office so soon as he pleased." After which, his Lordship laid himself down on the block, and said, "I forgive my enemies, and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... powerless. He could only sit there dumbly—stupidly—listening for what he felt was sure as the death stroke of the headsman to his doomed ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... from the scene without whose eternal substance showed through the shadowy illusion of passing hansoms and omnibuses, like the sole fact of the street, the king's voice rising above the noises in tender caution to a heedless witness, "Have a care of the axe; have a care," and then gravely to the headsman: "When I stretch out my hands so, then—" The drums were ordered beaten, so that we could not hear more; and we went out, and crossed among the cabs and 'busses to the horse-guards sitting shrunken on their steeds, and passed between them into the park beyond ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... had been removed from the prisoner's legs, that he might go to hear mass, commanded his jailer not to let him budge from his cage except to be tortured (gehenne) and the duke wrote a piteous letter, praying for clemency and signing himself le pauvre Jacques. In vain: him, too, the headsman's axe sent to his account ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... as that?" said Claparon. "Gobseck is a banker, just as the headsman is a doctor. The first word is 'fifty per cent'; he belongs to the race of Harpagon; he'll take canary birds at all seasons, fur tippets in summer, nankeens in winter. What securities are you going to offer him? If you want him to take your paper without security you will have to deposit your wife, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... capital sentence was executed, but the cutting out of the tongue was omitted, the executioner only pretending to do that part of his work. La Barre's head fell, amid the applause of a cruel crowd which admired the skillful stroke of the headsman. A thrill of indignation, not unmixed with fear, ran through the liberal party in France. The anger and grief of Voltaire were loudly expressed. It was at least an improvement on the state of public feeling in former generations that such severity should not have met with universal ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... earl,' says I, 'that we undervallers you. When we remembers the field of Agincourt; and Chevy Chase; an' the Tower of London, with the block on which three lords was beheaded, with the very cuts in it which the headsman made when he chopped 'em off, as well as two crooked ones a-showin' his bad licks, which little did he think history would preserve forever; an' the old Guildhall, where down in the ancient crypt is a-hangin' our Declaration of Independence along with the Roman pots and ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... not ashamed of his chain. And afterwards, so much had he won his way into the Apostle's confidence, and made himself needful for him by his services and his sweetness, that the lonely prisoner, with the gibbet or headsman's sword in prospect, feels that he would like to have Mark with him once more, and bids Timothy bring him with himself, for 'he is profitable to me for the ministry.' 'He can do a thousand things that a man like me cannot do for himself, and he does them all for love and nothing for reward.' So ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... fig, and a fig for't, rather than make a worse figure with a hempen collar, and die in the air at so short warning. Accordingly, when they had neatly picked out the fig with their teeth from old Thacor's snatch-blatch, they plainly showed it the headsman, saying, Ecco lo fico, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... and ever since your escape, my gossip, the Headsman, who lives up there as you know, distrusts me. I learn from his assistant, who is a friend of mine, that the story of the cell undermined by the sea has made him fancy I wish to deprive him of his perquisites. I know that while he waters his flowers on the platform he keeps ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... and unfortunate incidents, its pleasures and chagrins? This often happens to me, especially by day and when I am unhappy. For a long time, too, I have been unhappy. For instance, not long ago, when shut up in a dark prison, with no prospect before me but that of an unjust death, and the headsman's axe bringing to a close my sad and eventful career, my good angel certainly, for I believe in such beings, sent, two hundred feet below the surface of the earth, a vision of dazzling light and beauty. I was transported beneath ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... not," he returned; "silly things, girls are. There's Dorothy, you know; we were playing at executions the other day—she was Mary Queen of Scots an' I was the headsman. I made a lovely axe with wood and silver paper, you know; and when I cut her head off she cried awfully, and I only gave her the weeniest little tap—an' they sent me to bed at six o'clock for it. I believe she cried on purpose—awfully caddish, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... in safe custody," answered Villefort; "and rely upon it, if the letter is found, he will not be likely to be trusted abroad again, unless he goes forth under the especial protection of the headsman." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... deacons are walking before, In their hands a great book open; Then there follows a soldier troop, With their drawn sabres flashing bright. At his right, the headsman goes, Holds in his hand the keen-edged sword; At his left goes his sister dear, And she weeps as the torrent pours, And she sobs ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... native, and the hatchet made to answer for a flag, while the mountain in the background would answer for the rolling billows of the ocean. He said he'd be hanged if it should. So I mentioned that it might perhaps pass for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Put George in black for the headsman, bend over the tree and put a frock on it for Mary, let the hatchet stand, and work in the guinea-pig and the factory chimney as mourners. Just as I had got the words out of my mouth, Barker knocked me ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the outcast of outcasts, fallen as low as the fancy of man can picture, this voluntary headsman, had treated her without rudeness, but with such absence of even a hint at endearment, with such disdain and wooden indifference, as no human being is treated; not even a dog or a horse, and not even an umbrella, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
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