"Besieging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinion maintains that the advantage in this particular connection would rest with the besiegers. The latter would be able to ascertain the character of the defences and the defending gun-force, by means of the aerial scout, who would prove of inestimable value in directing the fire of the besieging forces. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... announcement from him: "You will be surprised to be told that we have done WONDERS! Enthusiastic crowds have filled the halls to the roof each night, and hundreds have been turned away. At Belfast the night before last we had L246 5s. In Dublin to-night everything is sold out, and people are besieging Dolby to put chairs anywhere, in doorways, on my platform, in any sort of hole or corner. In short the Readings are a perfect rage at a time when everything else is beaten down." He took the Eastern Counties at his return, and this ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... cannot hope for any remedy at present. In other countries the universities and high schools send out reformers, men fighting for progress; here the centres of learning only send out a proletariat of students who must live, besieging all the professions and public appointments, with the sole desire to open themselves a way to continuous employment. They study (if you can call it study) for a few years, not to learn, but to ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... battle, one of the very few pitched battles of the age. The campaign indeed began in an attack on the fortress; but it grew into something more on both sides. And it is only to the north that there was room for the operations of two armies of any size; the earlier besieging could take place from all points, but specially, one would think, from the east and north. But we have to make out these things as well as we can from the look of the ground. The contemporary accounts give us the facts; but they give ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... the general one day, as he looked at Basile's plan of a town which the army was besieging. "How comes it that you are able to do all these things? But you have a genius for this ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... stout and smooth-going, with well-filled traveling sacks. The weather was delightful, and the boys enjoyed the fortnight's march exceedingly. Upon the road they learned that Massena had laid siege to Ciudad Rodrigo, and that the 16th was on its way to join the besieging army. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... to the ears of the Pope in Rome that King Arthur was besieging Sir Launcelot in his castle of the Joyous Garde, and it grieved him that there should be strife between two such goodly knights, the like of whom was not to be found in Christendom. So he called to him the Bishop of Rochester, and bade him carry word to Britain, ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... The Eclipse of the Moon of this Year 1666. June 16. (st. n.) was observed from a Hill neer my Garden, to the end, that we might see both together the Suns setting, and the Moon rising. But I was disappointed of my hopes: For very thick Exhalations, besieging the Horizon, where the Moon was to rise, unto 2 deg.. 30', hindred me from seeing the Moon rise, in the Article of the setting of the Sun. Wherefore the first Phasis of 1. dig. 45'. did not appear but in the Moons Altitude of 2 deg.. 30'; when the greatest Obscuration ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... of affairs when the Prince of Orange arrived at Peronne, between Binche and the Duke of Alva's entrenchments. The besieging army was rich in notabilities of elevated rank. Don Frederic of Toledo had hitherto commanded, but on the 27th of August, the Dukes of Medina Coeli and of Alva had arrived in the camp. Directly afterwards came the warlike Archbishop ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... changed the whole course of the war. The campaign would probably have followed the course of the many campaigns waged in the valleys of the Meuse and Marne; and Metz, held by a garrison of suitable size, might have defied the efforts of a large besieging army for fully six months. These conjectures are not fanciful. The duration of the food supply of a garrison cut off from the outside world varies inversely with the size of that garrison. The experiences of armies ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Petrograd "official" laconically reports that: "In the Przemysl sector the fortress guns continue to fire more than a thousand heavy projectiles daily, but our troops besieging the fortress lose only about ten men every day." It is also on March 18 that General von Kusmanek issued the following manifesto to the defenders of Przemysl:—"Heroes, I announce to you my last summons. The honor of our country ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... which was defended by Man Singha, brother of Sangsar, and by Harsha Dev’, the warlike Brahman of Kumau, often already mentioned. Sangsar himself, with a small body of chosen men, hovered round the besieging armies; but, these being likely to prevail, he invited to his assistance Ranjit Singha, who affects to be called king of Lahaur; and with his assistance the forces of Gorkha were repulsed with great ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... bas-reliefs, the works of that mysterious people. A propos of Montepulciano's importance in the early years of Roman history, I lighted on a quaint story related by its very jejune annalist, Spinello Benci. It will be remembered that Livy attributes the invasion of the Gauls, who, after besieging Clusium, advanced on Rome, to the persuasions of a certain Aruns. He was an exile from Clusium; and wishing to revenge himself upon his country-people, he allured the Senonian Gauls into his service by the promise ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... sometimes in large numbers, and of the highest families, were cast into the flames; while the wailing of their relatives, if it was not stifled by themselves at the supposed demand of piety, was drowned by the sound of musical instruments. As late as 310 B.C., when Agathocles was besieging Carthage, and had reduced the city to the direst straits, we are told that the people laid two hundred boys of their noblest families upon the arms of the brazen image of the god, whence they were allowed to fall into the fire beneath. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... sadly marred by the doings of Kheyr-ed-d[i]n. That incorrigible pirate, aware that no one would suspect that he could be roving while Charles was besieging his new kingdom, took occasion to slip over to Minorca with his twenty-seven remaining galleots; and there, flying Spanish and other false colours, deceived the islanders into the belief that his vessels were part of the Armada; upon which he rowed boldly into Port ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches, waving first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that the force of those battering antlers would be directed against his hemlock, so that his friend's nerves might get a ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... in the utmost agitation: he stopped at every window, to gaze on the terrible, the victorious element that was furiously consuming his brilliant conquest; seizing on all the bridges, on all the avenues to his fortress, enclosing, and, as it were, besieging him in it; spreading every moment wider and wider; constantly reducing him within narrower limits, and confining him at length to the site of the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... June, 1863, General Grant was compelled, in order to show a bold front to Gens. Pemberton and Johnston at the same time, while besieging Vicksburg, to draw nearly all the troops from Milliken's Bend to his support, leaving three infantry regiments of the black Phalanx and a small force of white cavalry to hold this, to him an all important post. Milliken's Bend was well fortified, and with a proper garrison ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... that the besieging army was beginning to grow a little unpopular. More action was needed if they were to retain ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... and made an attack on the place, and he was for nine years besieging it, and Midhir was driving him away. And then his people began digging through the hill; and when they were getting near to where Etain was, Midhir sent three times twenty beautiful women, having all of them the appearance ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... trusted; and even La Hire was in fault here, as afterwards he freely owned. For the Maid had told them to lead her to the city on the north side, as her plan was to strike straight through the English lines, and scatter the besieging force ere ever she entered the town at all. But since the city lies to the north of the river, and the English had built around it twelve great bastilles, as they called them, and lay in all their strength on this side, it seemed too venturesome ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... gates first. And they have brought word—and such news! they have brought word, that a party of the enemy, as they call them, are coming towards the castle; so we shall have all the officers of justice, I suppose, besieging it! all those terrible-looking fellows one used to see ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... besieging us, your honour," said Joyce, "but he will not attack at present. If I might presume to advise, we shall do well to leave a single sentinel on this stage, since no one can approach the palisades without being seen, if ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... verandahs compassing the four sides of it, as they often did in days when the builder had only to turn his hand to the forest. It stood on the very edge of the town; wheatfields in the summer billowed up to its fences, and corn-stacks in the autumn camped around it like a besieging army. The plank sidewalk finished there; after that you took the road or, if you were so inclined, the river, into which you could throw a stone from the orchard of the Plummer Place. The house stood roomily and shadily in ornamental ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... alone this and other weaknesses of man's mortal nature were constantly besieging the mind of the Master after He had taken upon Himself the Karma of the Earth. He had also taken upon Himself the mortal life consequent of the human frame which He inhabited. He must live, suffer and die—even as all men—and according to the ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... delirium, the narrator sought to express and convey the deep disturbing idea that was besieging him, that ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... from among them, turned the leading Turkish mosque into a gas- house. One of the most interesting relics in the Servian capital is an old Roman well, dug from the brow of the fortress hill to below the level of the Danube, for furnishing water to the city when cut off from the river by a besieging army. It is an enormous affair, a tubular brick wall about forty feet in circumference and two hundred and fifty feet deep, outside of which a stone stairway, winding round and round the shaft, leads ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... infantine seven years, the captain took her with him to his station up the country, where she lived she knew not how long, in a strong hill-fort, one Puttymuddyfudgepoor, where there was a great deal of fighting, and besieging, and storming, and cannonading; but it ceased at last, and the captain, who then soon successively became both major and colonel, always kept her in his own quarters, making her his little pet; and, after the fighting was all over, his ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Saracens they were again made serviceable, by command of King Richard I. Strange to say, Richard himself was killed, we are told, by a bolt shot from the ramparts of the Castle of Chaluz, which he was besieging. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... an army of red ants besieging a colony of small black ants. The object of the red ants was the theft of the pupae or young of the black ants. These pupae they take to their own nest and rear as slaves, the enslaved ants to all appearances becoming entirely satisfied with their condition, and working ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... And then the monkey host, having achieved success was withdrawn at the command of Rama, after it had thus pulled down the fortifications of Lanka and made all objects within the city capable of being aimed at by the besieging force.'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... drove him away and the increasing crowds besieging poor, bewildered old Peter Caithness trod upon the major, and there was nothing for him to do but to scuttle back to his own brush-heap and ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... would be folly for you to return to meet your death. It would be impossible for you to get across the plains to the nearest place where your people are trying to hold out. Even if you could get there, the army besieging them would take you, and no one there could save ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... He then entered the priesthood, A.D. 390, and five years afterward was made coadjutor in the bishopric of Hippo, and eventually became bishop. The rest of his life he devoted to defending the Christian religion, both by preaching and by writing. He died in Hippo, A.D. 430, while the Vandals were besieging it. St. Augustine is called "the greatest of the Fathers." His great work "De Civitate Dei," "the highest expression of his thought," engaged him for seventeen years. In his well-known "Confessions" ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... strike a blow towards recovering his authority. To this end he marshalled his cardinals and other dignitaries in all their pomp; put himself at their head, and, escorted by an armed array of lay partisans, set out for Rome with the intention of besieging the Capitol. ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... of pattering feet had both ceased. The sounds of the night were now more soothing, more harmoniously blended. The earliest arrivals of the theatre crowd were besieging the sidewalk ticket office of the burlesque house opposite. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... recovered, but that was no palliation of the offense to the mind of a hot-eyed young man from the East, who was besieging the county authorities for redress and writing brimstone and saltpetre for his paper. The powers of the county proving either lackadaisical or timorous, he appealed to those of the State, and he went every night to sleep at a farmhouse, the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... is the king besieging of young Bruce: His lords are there who, when they see this sight, I know will have small heart for John ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the town as a solvent man I must needs pay them, and so the public perforce had to wait. But the worst of it was that the saloon was full of those everlastingly inquisitive tourists. I could hear a whole company of them besieging my cabin door while I was dressing, declaring "they must shake hands with the doctor!" [19] One of them actually peeped in through the ventilator at me, my secretary told me afterwards. A nice sight she must have seen, the lovely ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... that something decisive had taken place: either Gloucester had fallen, or Essex had raised the siege, for army there was none, though the signs of a lately upbroken encampment were visible on all sides. Presently, inquiring at the gate, he learned that, on the near approach of Essex, the besieging army had retired, and that, after a few days' rest, the general had turned again in the direction of London. Richard, therefore, having fed Beelzebub and eaten his own dinner, which in his present condition was more necessary than usual to his being of service, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... It certainly was not on account of any decline in the taste for amusement that the games declined. In the fifth century, when the Vandals were besieging Carthage, "the church of Carthage was crazy for the games," and the cries of those dying in battle were confused with those of the applauding spectators at the games. The leading men of Treves were gratifying their love of feasting when the barbarians entered their city.[2069] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... of these events was soon carried to Chunda Sahib, who, with his French allies, was besieging Trichinopoly. He immediately detached four thousand men from his camp, and sent them to Arcot. They were speedily joined by the remains of the force which Clive had lately scattered. They were further strengthened by two thousand men from Vellore, and by a still more ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had constructed a rampart around their ships, and now instead of besieging Troy they were in a manner besieged themselves, within their rampart. The next day after the unsuccessful embassy to Achilles, a battle was fought, and the Trojans, favored by Jove, were successful, and succeeded in ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... having fired two shots through the parlour window, shattering the woodwork by way of letting the widow know they were there, fired a third through her bed-room window to expedite the lady's movements. Almost paralysed with fear, she parleyed with the besieging force, which, by its spokesman, demanded her late husband's gun, threatening to put "daylight through her" unless it were instantly given up. It was in her son's possession, and she hurried to his room. The young dog came on the scene, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... three million men who have done nothing but fighting for four years will be out of employment. Vast numbers of them will not know which way to turn. They will be wholly unfit, until they have trained themselves anew, for the pursuits of peace. Captains, majors, colonels and, yes, generals, will be besieging me for jobs, as zealously as they're now besieging Lee's army in the trenches before Petersburg, and with as much cause. When the war is over the soldier will not be of so much value, and the man of peace will regain his own. I hope you've thought ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and I did not contradict her. To me her conversation was interesting as showing how little the traditions of the people can be relied on, and how easily, by the side of real history, a popular history could grow up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne besieging Jerusalem owed their origin very likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old women. My sister and I were always terrified when we were sent to visit her, for with her dishevelled grey hair, her thin ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... Mahomet II. at their head, were besieging Belgrade, which was defended by Huniade, surnamed the Exterminator of the Turks. Halley's comet appeared and the two armies were seized with equal fear. Pope Calixtus III., himself seized by the general terror, ordered public prayers ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... be hung to-day."-In these minds turned topsy-turvy the actual, palpable truth gives way to its opposite; "the attack was not begun by them; the order to sound the tocsin came from the palace; it is the palace which was besieging the nation, and not the nation which was besieging the palace."[3107] The vanquished "are the assassins of the people," caught in the act; and on the 14th of August the Federates demand a court-martial "to avenge ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... instant there was an uproar. Men and women lost their heads and clambered up on to the platform, pressing round the singer, besieging her for a spray of leaves or a flower from the sheaf she carried. Some even tried to secure a bit of the gold embroidery from off her gown by way ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... defeated Grant's one hundred and forty thousand. Richmond was safe, and the North was besieging Washington with an army of heart-broken mothers and fathers who demanded ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... lovers of those very ladies; nor of the fine linen, silver, cut-glass, and fingerbowls found and destroyed by the Boers in the luxurious British camp at Dundee. I shall not dwell upon the glorious victories of the first months, the capture of armoured trains, the blowing up of bridges, the besieging of towns, the arrival in Pretoria of the first British prisoners and the long sojourn of British officers in captivity in the Model School—from where, incidentally, Winston Churchill escaped in an ingenious way—and ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... far as Corcyca with the intention of sailing to Italy, but on learning that Laevinus was already at Brundusium he returned home. When Laevinus had sailed as far as Corcyca, Philip set out against the Roman allies; he had captured Oricum and was besieging Apollonia. Laevinus made an expedition against him anew, recovered Oricum and rescued Apollonia. Then Philip after burning the ships which he had used ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... at this time besieging Rodosto; and the Greeks, hastening their preparations, and sending each day reinforcements, were on the eve of forcing the enemy to battle. Each people looked on the coming struggle as that which would be to a great degree decisive; as, in case of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... so that I now stood in an oblique line with the enemy's rear. I sent out my carts to the south-west, going round Ladysmith in the direction of Modderspruit. One of my scouts reported to me that the Free State commandos which had been besieging Ladysmith to the south, had all gone in the direction of Van Reenen's Pass; another brought the information that the enemy had been seen to approach the village, and that a great force of cavalry was making straight ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... that menaces Europe. If you did, you would thank your lucky stars every minute of the day that you have the chance to leave England for our own blessed country, no matter what the cost or inconvenience. Why, within a month this whole continent will be involved in war. There are people now besieging the booking offices by the hundreds who would be glad and thankful to find room in the steerage. If we had not started when we did, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... bloom at Malmaison. Roses! Roses! Swimming above their leaves, rotting beneath them. Fallen flowers strew the unraked walks. Fallen flowers for a fallen Emperor! The General in charge of him draws back and watches. Snatches of music—snarling, sneering music of bagpipes. They say a Scotch regiment is besieging Saint-Denis. The Emperor wipes his face, or is it his eyes. His tired eyes which see nowhere the grace they long for. Josephine! Somebody asks him a question, he does not answer, somebody else does that. There are voices, but one voice he ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... stronghold which had so continually baulked his plans. But little good came of his efforts, and the much-talked-of trebuchet proving powerless to effect a breach, Louis had to resign himself to a weary blockade. While he was besieging Dover, Saer de Quincy had relieved Mount Sorrel, whence he marched to the help of Gilbert of Ghent, the only English baron whom Louis ventured to raise to comital rank as Earl of Lincoln. Gilbert was still striving ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... fervently, but did not attempt rousing my sleeping companion until I saw if no better could be done. The women, however, were alarmed, and, rushing into our apartment, exclaimed that all the devils in hell were besieging the house. Then, indeed, the landlord awoke, and it was time for him, for the tumult had increased to such a degree that it shook the house to its foundations, being louder and more furious than I could have conceived the ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... been white since the day when he had upset the bottle of "Combined Toning and Fixing Solution" into the drawer where they were. Robert waved back, and immediately felt that he had been unwise. For this signal had been seen by the besieging force, and two men in steel-caps were coming towards him. They had high brown boots on their long legs, and they came towards him with such great strides that Robert remembered the shortness of his own legs and did not run away. He knew it would be useless to himself, and he feared it might ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... where he was born about 1795. Through a personal application to the Duke of Kent, he was enabled to proceed as a volunteer to join the army in Spain. Arriving at the period when the army under General Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) was besieging St Sebastian, he speedily obtained a lieutenancy in the 42d Regiment, in which he served to the close of the Pyrenees' campaign. Wounded at the battle of Toulouse, by a musket-ball penetrating his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... instructions and orders from Sir John Lawrence to the Brigadier commanding at Ferozepore to the effect that a wing of Her Majesty's 61st Regiment was to proceed at once to reinforce the army under Sir Henry Barnard, now besieging the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... there; persecuting the Christians with renewed energy since Constantine took them into favor;—and of late years unmercifully banging about Constantius son of Constantine in the open field, and besieging and sometimes taking his fortresses. This, you may say, with one hand: with the other he has been very busy with his neighbors in the north-east, the nomads; he has been punishing them a little; and incidentally founding, as a protection against their ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... prophecy indeed, this inductive prophecy appears to be; and the question arises, whether a kind, endowed of God with a faculty of seeing, which commands the future in so inclusive a manner, and with so near and sufficient an aim for the most important practical purposes, ought to be besieging Heaven for a supernatural gift, and questioning the ancient seers for some vague shadows of the coming event, instead of putting this immediate endowment—this ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... schemes, financial promoter of colossal enterprises, he had passed his existence besieging the directors of the great banking establishments and having interviews in the lobbies of the government departments. Eternally on the eve of surprising combinations that were bound to bring him dozens of millions, he had always lived in luxurious ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... saw in the papers that the Algonquin Trust Company had closed its doors; I read the heartbreaking details of the crowds besieging it, the lines of frightened people standing there in the rain all night ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... nothing of Kona or Goliba since the wrecking of our barricade, but Omar, I was gratified to observe, was stationed at a window of the opposite house from which he directed well-aimed shots at those below. A body of fully five hundred infantry were besieging the house wherein a large number of our comrades had taken shelter, determined to put them to the sword; yet so desperate was the resistance that they found it impossible to enter, and many were killed in their futile endeavours. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... to him rather than to the crusading forces. The greatest indignation prevailed in the army when this stratagem was discovered, and the soldiers were, with the utmost difficulty, prevented from renewing the attack and besieging the Greek emissary. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... no use in that," said the hunter, who had followed and posted himself a little in the rear of the besieging party, under the apprehension that the besieged might make a rush out of his retreat, in the smoke and confusion consequent on the firing,—"there is no use in any thing of that kind. The entrance, after the first four or five feet, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... matter of conjecture, but there can be little doubt that he was active on the popular side. He had but one difference then, he afterwards said in one of his tracts, with his party. He would not join them in wishing for the success of the Turks in besieging Vienna, because, though the Austrians were Papists, and though the Turks were ostensibly on the side of the Hungarian reformers whom the Austrian Government had persecuted, he had read the history of the Turks and could not pray ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... Tolosa, Villafranca, and numerous other considerable towns, were held by the soldiers of the Pretender; and, to crown all, Paco learned, to his astonishment, that Zumalacarregui and his army were then in front of Bilboa, vigorously besieging ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... precautions were taken against the Lugarenos. They were besieging the Casa from afar. They had established a sort of camp at the end of the street, and they prowled about amongst the old, barricaded houses in their pointed hats, in their rags and finery; women, with food, passed constantly between the villages and the panic-stricken town; there were groups ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... greater part were off, and 24 hours afterward the Allies hovered round the town. The French boast, and nobody can contradict the assertion, that the Allies were never able to take their fortresses; certainly not; for they never attempted. Instead of losing their time in besieging, they left a few to mark the place and went on.... The English prisoners seem to have enjoyed every comfort they could expect—in fact, their imprisonment was in great measure nominal; with little ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... besieging with muscle, skill, eye, hand, voice, wit, brain, heel and toe the ultimate high ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... little cottage. I looked at the wretched bed, at the broken windows, the puffs of smoke forced from the fire by the tempest, I observed the helpless despair of the farmer, the superstitious terror of the children, the fury of the elements besieging the bed of death; and when, in the midst of all that, I saw that gentle, pale-faced woman, going and coming, bravely meeting the duties of the moment regardless of the tempest, and of our presence, it seemed to me there was in that calm performance something more serene than the most ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... Drogo. "There will be a fine gathering of arrows when all is done, and it will be long before these old walls crave for mercy. Keep up your courage, men. The fools have no means of besieging the place, and ere another sun has set, the royal banner will appear for their ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... time was too full of other trouble to permit her to indulge her thoughts overlong upon such a matter. A volley of musketry from below came to warn them of the happenings there. The air was charged with the hideous howls of the besieging mob, and presently there was a cry from one of the ladies, as a sudden glare of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... him lay to free him from them, had advised him, in order to conjure away the tempting demon, to have recourse to the bell rope, and ring with all his might. At the denunciating sound, the monks would be rendered aware that temptation was besieging a brother, and all the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... point I beg leave to deny,) and as the vallum is full thrice the height of that of other Roman encampments in France[16], we are bound to infer it is a work of far more modern times, and probably was erected by Talbot, the Caesar of the English[17], while besieging Dieppe in the middle ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... than all the women living, we are come hither, considering that the sight which should be most pleasant to all others to behold, spiteful fortune had made most fearful to us: making myself to see my son, and my daughter here her husband, besieging the walls of his native country: so as that which is the only comfort to all others in their adversity and misery, to pray unto the Gods, and to call to them for aid, is the only thing which plungeth us ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Mountain made repeated attacks on the Gironde. On the 5th of March news reached Paris that the Austrians had captured Aix-la-Chapelle, and that the French general Miranda had been compelled to abandon his guns and to retire from before Maestricht, which he was besieging. Danton, who was in the north, arranging the annexation of the Netherlands to France, started for Paris at once. On the 14th the capital heard, with amazement and alarm, that the Vendee had risen in arms for ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... of New England the militia and volunteers poured in, and in three days after the fight, twenty thousand armed men were encamped between the rivers Mystic and Roxburgh, thus besieging Boston. They at once set to work throwing up formidable earthworks, the English troops remaining within their intrenchments across the neck of land ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... Figueroa Street, could have envisaged the three of them that day his chief concern would not have been for their bodily danger. It would have seemed to him that the intangible cloud settling down over them was a more tragic and sinister thing than the insurrectos besieging them, than the thirst which was cracking their lips and swelling ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... shelter of the tent of Holofernes. Sinuous in grace, tranced, passionately in love, she has forgotten her peculiar task. She is in a sense Bethulia itself, the race of Israel made over into a woman, while Holofernes is the embodiment of the besieging army. Though in a quiet tent, and on the terms of love, it is the essential warfare of the hot Assyrian blood and the pure and ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... power of France, which hath always been a troublesome neighbour to this country. The castle was begun by the Arragonian counts of Provence, and afterwards enlarged by several successive dukes of Savoy, so as to be deemed impregnable, until the modern method of besieging began to take place. A fruitless attempt was made upon it in the year one thousand five hundred and forty-three, by the French and Turks in conjunction: but it was reduced several times after that period, and is now in ruins. The celebrated engineer Vauban, being commanded ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... luxuriance and seclusion, a busy sewing-machine factory has forced its way, and with its numerous chimneys and stacks literally smoked the occupants out; at their very gates it sits like the commander of a besieging army, and about it cluster the cottages of the workmen, in military regularity. Little and neat and trim, they flock there like the commander's obedient host, and such they are, for the sight of them offends the eyes of wealth. So, what with the smoke, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... at Chinon, a force of French soldiers was preparing to go to the south of France to relieve the city of Orleans which the English were besieging. ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... pressed here, but the handful of men in the Signal Tower had the worst of it," continued the Doctor in a matter-of-fact voice. "It was reckoned that there were fourteen thousand men from the Swat Valley besieging us, and as they did not mind how many they lost, even with the Maxims and our wire defences it was difficult to keep them off. We had to hold on to the Signal Tower because we could communicate with the people on the Malakand from there, while we couldn't from the Fort itself. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... waves of the Ganges. Here he was informed that Bajazet, the Grand Seignior of Turkey, was on a career of conquest which rivaled his own; that he had overrun all of Asia Minor; that, crossing the Hellespont, he had subjugated Serbia, Macedonia, Thessaly, and that he was even besieging the imperial city of Constantine. The jealousy of Tamerlane was thoroughly aroused. He instantly turned upon his steps to seek this foe, worthy of his arms, dispatching to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... could be drafted from garrisons, advanced towards Namur with an army of ninety thousand men; and prince Vaudemont, being joined by the prince of Hesse with a strong body of forces from the Rhine, took possession of the strong camp at Masy, within five English miles of the besieging army. The king understanding that the enemy had reached Fleurus, where they discharged ninety pieces of cannon as a signal to inform the garrison of their approach, left the conduct of the siege to the elector of Bavaria, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the little look-out towers is composed of a tombstone, representing a priest in full ecclesiastical dress, and my question as to how it came there elicited the following story:—When Louis XIV. was besieging the citadel, he placed his head-quarters, and a strong battery, on the summit of the Mont Chaudane,[42] which commands the citadel on one side as the Bregille does on the other. Among the besieged was a monk named ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... lay two armies besieging it, with flashing arms. Two plans were considered: either to destroy the town, or to divide the wealth thereof with its citizens. But the beleaguered garrison had not yet yielded, but armed themselves and set an ambush. Their dear wives and children, and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... to take the Russian guns and were mown down by hundreds, the rain began to fall in torrents and a winter of unusual coldness was upon them. Nights as well as days were passed in the trenches that had been dug before the strong fortress of Sebastopol, which the allies were besieging, and the suffering of our English soldiers was far greater than it need have been, owing to the wickedness of many of the contractors who had undertaken to supply the army with boots and stores, and did not hesitate to get these so cheap and bad ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... Oil" had already captured the gas-lighting corporations of certain of the great cities of the United States, including the immensely rich ones of New York (directly), Philadelphia and Chicago (indirectly); and for two years previously had been besieging the several independent Brooklyn companies for the purpose of consolidating them into a single gigantic corporation. This project it has since accomplished. Its intention is to weld this corporation with the great one that already holds the monopoly ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... have been living on hope here, though the chances of our ever being released were small, indeed. Of course, we did not even know that Tippoo and the English were at war, until we heard that an English army was besieging Bangalore; and even then we all felt that, even if Tippoo were beaten and forced to make peace, it would make no difference to us. He kept back hundreds of prisoners when he was defeated before, and would certainly not surrender any he now holds, unless ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks [besieging Port Hudson]; and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... inch of ground and fighting hand to hand, the men of Molokai retired before the invaders. There was an incessant din of weapons and voices. At last, the garrison—the fifty who were left of it—and their chief were crowded to the temple in the centre of the plain. One of the besieging party scrambled to the roof and set it afire with a torch. The fated fifty rushed forth only to hurl themselves against the hedge of weapons about them. Kaupepee was transfixed by a spear. With his last strength he aimed his javelin at the breast of a tall young chief who ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... divided his kingdom among his children. He then espoused the cause of the eldest son, Sancho, and assisted him in wresting their portion of the kingdom from his brothers Garcia and Alfonso. Sancho having been treacherously slain while besieging his sister Urraca's town of Zamora, the Cid attached himself to Alfonso, humiliating him, however, by making him and his chief lords swear that they had had no hand in Sancho's death. For this, Alfonso revenged himself by exiling the Cid on the slightest pretexts, recalling him only when ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... the mean time, were divided in opinion as to the best mode of conducting the war. Some were for besieging Bari, held by the illustrious and unfortunate Isabella of Aragon; [15] others, in a more chivalrous spirit, opposed the attack of a place defended by a female, and advised an immediate assault on Barleta itself, whose old and dilapidated works might easily ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... monsters; but this produced not the slightest effect on the rest, even though the doctor fired and killed another. The padre, meantime, was blazing away, at each shot bringing down one of the peccaries besieging him; but the rest continued as furious as before the fall of their companions. There were a hundred or more, but as they kept rushing about it was difficult to count them. It was also clear that, unless we could manage to kill every one of them, it would be unsafe for us to descend ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... Rome, Philip sent envoys to Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, and concluded with him a treaty of strict alliance. He next sailed with a fleet up the Adriatic, to assist Deme'trius of Pharos, who had been driven from his Illyrian dominions by the Romans; but while besieging Apollo'nia, a small town in Illyria, he was met and defeated by the Roman praetor M. Vale'rius Laevi'nus, and was forced to burn his ships and retreat overland to Macedon. Such was the issue of his first encounter with the Romans. The latter now turned ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... besieging canoes was breaking up, first one dropped out of the circle, then another, until the whole fleet had formed in one long, unbroken line. Paddles flashed in the water and the long line came sweeping gracefully on past the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... herself, or she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one night Dilly found out that Annette's life had been a continual laying hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that she was ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... uncle will have it) Dunbritton, where there is a castle, more curious than any thing of the kind I had ever seen. It is honoured with a particular description by the elegant Buchanan, as an arx inexpugnabilis, and, indeed, it must have been impregnable by the antient manner of besieging. It is a rock of considerable extent, rising with a double top, in an angle formed by the confluence of two rivers, the Clyde and the Leven; perpendicular and inaccessible on all sides, except in one place where the entrance ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... charmed at this, turned toward him and said, "Is it not shameful, monsieur, that they should close the gates in open day, as though the Spaniards or the English were besieging Paris?" ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... their prison'd legion, Oft and oft besieging, Vainly sought to break, Vainly sought to throw them O'er the vales below them, Through the clefts that show them Paths ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... as the British writers haue recorded them, wherevpon discord arose betweene Cadwallo & Edwin, who for two yeres space were linked in friendship, Cadwallo vanquisht, his flight, of Pelitus the Spanish wizard, Cadwallo ouerthroweth Penda and his power besieging Excester, he arreareth battell against the Northumbers, and killeth Edwin their king, he seeketh to expell the Saxons out of the land, Penda slaieth Oswald, whose brother and successor Osunus by gifts and submission obteineth ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... officers, and not an order was obeyed for the rest of the day. So you will see, my son, that while the superior generals and their staffs were banqueting on Mr. Riggs's bull, the field officers were besieging their brains with Mr. Blair's choice whisky. The city was perfectly safe while this state of revelry existed. And I feel, my son, that you will agree with me that Mr. Blair deserves well of his country for supplying his cellar with this remarkable weapon of defense. Let the future historian bear ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... is said to have grieved over the fate of Carthage, and to have dreaded any further increase of the Roman territory. In 142 Scipio was censor, and acted with almost Catonian severity. In 134, though not a candidate, he was elected to the consulship and put in command of the Roman army then besieging the city of Numantia in Spain. The war, of which this siege formed a part, had been going on for some years most disastrously for the Romans, but Scipio speedily brought it to a conclusion in 133. While before Numantia he received news of the murder of Ti. Gracchus, whose sister he ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... after all, the searching persecutions were rare and intermitting, and not, perhaps, in any case, so fiery as they have been represented. We think more of that gentle but insidious persecution which lay in the solicitations of besieging friends, and more still of the continual temptations which haunted the irresolute Christian in the fascinations of the public amusements. The theatre, the circus, and, far beyond both, the cruel amphitheatre, constituted, for the ancient world, a passionate enjoyment, that by ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... before he had a beard. All this made many of the cities which were subject to Sertorius turn their eyes towards Pompeius, and feel inclined to pass over to him; but their intentions were checked by the loss at Lauron,[151] which happened contrary to all expectation. Sertorius was besieging this town, when Pompeius came with all his force to relieve it. There was a hill, well situated for enabling an enemy to act against the place, which Sertorius made an effort to seize, and Pompeius to prevent its ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... General Prevost now informed Count D'Estaing that he was resolved to defend the place to the last extremity. On the 17th, D'Estaing had been joined by General Lincoln with some 3000 men, which, with the French troops, raised the total besieging force to something over 8000. The ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... situation, was always the headquarters of whatever army was in possession of the country around. On this account, the family had to fly more than once at the approach of the enemy. In 1848 the Countess had fled to Milan, and was confined at the very time the Austrians under Radetsky were besieging the town, which was defended by Charles Albert. Fearing what might occur when the city was surrendered, the lady, together with her new-born infant and the rest of her family, escaped the next day with considerable ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... of Lee's movements which McClellan got from a copy of Lee's order of the day for the both. This had been found at Frederick on the 13th, and it tallied so well with what was otherwise known that no doubt was left as to its authenticity. It showed that Jackson's corps with Walker's division were besieging Harper's Ferry on the Virginia side of the Potomac, whilst McLaws's division supported by Anderson's was co-operating on Maryland Heights. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 281, 603.] Longstreet, with the remainder of his corps, was at Boonsboro ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... it would be to all proper subordination and how demoralizing its effect upon the morale of the Army if it should become a precedent for future legislation! Officers might then be found, instead of performing their appropriate duties, besieging the halls of Congress for the purpose of obtaining special favors and choice places by legislative enactment. Under these circumstances I have deemed it but fair to inform Congress that whilst I do not consider the bill unconstitutional, this is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... for, besieging the recruiting stations. It's symbolical.... Our tremendous reserves of will and manhood. Our ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Lieutenant-General (February 1644), which alienated old Huntly, chief of the Gordons, who now and again divided and paralysed that gallant clan. Montrose rode north, where, in February 1644, old Leslie, with twenty regiments of foot, three thousand horse, and many guns, was besieging Newcastle. With him was the prototype of Scott's Dugald Dalgetty, Sir James Turner, who records examples of Leslie's senile incompetency. Leslie, at least, forced the Marquis of Newcastle to a retreat, and a movement of Montrose on Dumfries ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... garrisoned by twenty or thirty thousand fanatics, well armed and well supplied with provisions, would be most formidable. It is unapproachable upon any side but the east, and there the nature of the ground (boggy) offers great obstacles to any besieging operations. It is Smith's intention to congregate his followers there, until he accumulates a force that can defy anything that ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... morning with a dull headache. The more he had puzzled over the speech he should make to the mob besieging Bivens's bank the more doubtful seemed the outcome. Still to remain silent longer, amid the accusations which were being daily hurled at him, was intolerable. He was possessed with a fierce desire to meet at least one of his ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... with time. For this was what it all came to: Was the distance between Winifred and himself greater than the distance between her and any other man? And when he had once thought that, the gate was open, and the besieging host marched in and took possession of every corner of him with longing and desire and a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... son Nadab, who "did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin".[439] Nadab waged war against the Philistines, and was besieging Gibbethon when Baasha revolted and slew him. Thus ended the First Dynasty of the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... myself the responsibility of admitting into your cabinet the veiled lady who has just come, and of requesting you to grant her the audience for which she has been besieging Dietrich with tears and lamentations. Dietrich, however, would not hear to it, and the lady continually called for Eberhard to come—Eberhard must lead her to the Prince. But, as Dietrich says, this is not Eberhard's week of service, so that he can not enter here. I was attracted ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach |
