"Hilt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been more to the purpose! But yon frantic graybeard prates of naught but death, ... 'twere well he should be silenced." And as he spoke, he frowned, his hand involuntarily playing with the jewelled hilt ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... had he dreamed. And there, within an arch at the stair-top And screened behind a painted hanging-cloth Of coiled gold serpents ready to make spring, Ignoble Death stood, his convulsive hand Grasping a rapier part-way down the blade To deal the blow with deadly-jewelled hilt— Black Death, turned white with horror of himself. Straight on came he that sang the blithe sea-song; And now his step was on the stair, and now He neared the blazoned ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was a door opposite where I stood, and, staring toward it, I saw it open slightly, and, back in the darkness, the beckoning of a hand. Startled, yet realizing that it must mean me, I stepped closer, gripping the hilt of ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Overbeck Wells, drawing himself up to his full height, and laying his hand upon the hilt of his sword, 'there I cannot follow thee, but must rather defy thee as traitor and faineant, seeing that thou art no true man, but one who would usurp the rights of our master the king, whom may the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... expressly agreed upon before to the contrary, 'tis a combined party of all four, and if your second be killed, you have two to deal withal, with good reason; and to say that it is foul play, it is so indeed, as it is, well armed, to attack a man who has but the hilt of a broken sword in his hand, or, clear and untouched, a man who is desperately wounded: but if these be advantages you have got by fighting, you may make use of them without reproach. The disparity and inequality are only weighed and considered from the condition of the combatants when ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... with Potts, holding his collar in his powerful grasp, and taking care to let Potts see the hilt of a knife which he carried up his sleeve, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... with the scene of perfidious treachery which these words disclosed, that I rose from my chair hardly knowing what I did, laid my hand on the hilt of my sword, and was about to leave the apartment in search of him on whom I might discharge my just indignation. Almost breathless, and with eyes and looks in which scorn and indignation had given way to the most lively alarm, Miss Vernon threw herself between me and ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the just wrath of the human beast sleeping at his side. With utmost caution the Belgian arose. Tarzan did not move. Werper took a few steps toward the plain and the distant forest to the northwest, then he paused and fingered the hilt of the long knife in his belt. He turned and looked ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... affection and expediency compel, I am attaching myself to the fortunes of the man whose alliance you thought you must court when my fortunes were in question. But you must feel how difficult it is to put away a political conviction, especially when it happens to be right and proved up to the hilt. However, I conform myself to the wishes of him from whom I cannot dissent with any dignity: and this I do not do, as perhaps some may think, from insincerity; for deliberate purpose and, by heaven! affection for Pompey are so powerful ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... palm of his right hand, clapped it to the hilt of his re-sheathed cutlass, and half drew it from the scabbard. "My!" he ejaculated, and his eyes seemed to flash in the morning sunshine. "It's going to be a warm time for some of 'em. I shouldn't like to be in that Yankee gentleman's shoes, ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... leaning in the opening to the cave. She was clad in her male attire as I had seen her first, save that by her side she bore the bejewelled Spanish rapier. Thus lolled she, smiling on me half-contemptuous, hand poised lightly on the hilt of her sword, all ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... of his clan gripped him. Slowly, quietly his hand moved back until it grasped the hilt of the big Colt's revolver that was ever with him—his thin white hand became suddenly steady as it slipped the weapon beneath the shadow ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a tithe of all I know of what took place during the great siege, the incidents might shame the wildest fancies of romance—how intrigue swayed with intrigue there, struggling hilt to hilt; how plot and plot were thwarted by the counterplot; how all trust in man was destroyed in that dark year that Arnold died, and a fiend took his fair shape to ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... a horse that was so spent it could barely keep its feet. It fell in a woeful heap outside the general's quarters, and Juggut Khan—all but as weary as the horse—swung himself free, staggered past the sentry at the door and rapped with his hilt on the tough teak panel. They had to give him brandy and feed him before he could summon strength enough to tell what he had seen ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... for a moment, the muscles of Clayton's face twitching an accompaniment to the nervous fingering of the buckhorn hilt; then he stepped up until ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Wallace put aside the hilt of the sword which Monteith presented to receive his oath. "No," said he, with a smile; "in these times I will not bind my conscience on subjects I do not know. If you dare trust the word of a Scotsman and a friend, speak out; and if the matter be honest, my honor ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... his axe after throwing the stone. He immediately whirled the heavy head so violently against the descending sword that the blade broke off close to the hilt, and Glumm stood before him, disarmed and helpless, gazing in speechless astonishment at the hilt which remained in ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... gale! Austere he seemed, but the hearts Of all men beat in his breast; No fetter but galled his wrist, No wrong that was not his own. What if those eloquent lips Curled with the old-time scorn? What if in needless hours His quick hand closed on the hilt? 'Twas the smoke from the well-won fields That clouded the veteran's eyes. A fighter ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the travellers—a grave man, whose head was sprinkled with the snows of fifty winters—dismounted, and, approaching the door, knocked at it with the steel hilt of his sword. He received no answer; but presently the lattice opened above his head, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... said the princess, 'but who wants half a one-horse kingdom that's mortgaged up to the hilt and a bit over?' ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... other was touched by the opposing weapon; then, when the ensuing claims of foul play had been disallowed and the subsequent argument settled, the combatant touched was considered to be a prisoner until such time as he might be touched by the hilt of a sword belonging to one of his own party, which effected his release and restored to him the full enjoyment of hostile activity. Pending such rescue, however, he was obliged to accompany the forces of his captor whithersoever their strategical necessities ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... the friends and the enemies of his country, and, if he has a preference at all, to give it to the latter. Apart from all other circumstances which in the eyes of Ulstermen justified them up to the hilt in the policy they pursued, apart from everything that distinguished them historically and morally from Irish "rebels," there was the patent and all-important fact that the motive of their opponents was hostility to England, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... coolly the attack of the shark, which was one of the largest of its species, and when it charged him, he stepped quickly aside and plunged his knife into its belly up to the hilt. ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... his heavy hand upon the silvery hilt, and thrust back the great sword into the scabbard, nor did he disobey the mandate of Minerva; but she had gone to Olympus, to the mansions of aegis-bearing Jove, amongst the other deities. But the son of Peleus again addressed Atrides ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... I have seen!" she laughed. "Two cutting edges and a point! Not to be held save by the hilt, eh, Ranjoor Singh? Search me for weapons first, and then use that dagger in ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... shall be surmounted by a crown; and in the lower half on a blue field a half lion and half dolphin of silver, armed and langued gules—that is to say, with red nails and tongue. The said lion shall hold in his paw a sword with guard and hilt. This coat-of-arms shall be made similar to the accompanying shield, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... and long entrails hung from their ivory fangs like bundles of rope from a mast. The Barbarians strove to blind them, to hamstring them; others would slip beneath their bodies, bury a sword in them up to the hilt, and perish crushed to death; the most intrepid clung to their straps; they would go on sawing the leather amid flames, bullets, and arrows, and the wicker tower would fall like a tower of stone. Fourteen ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... his throat was nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock's feathers, but they were limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girt to his side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and some particoloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely less degree ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... are most frequent. A Taoist priest is then summoned, and enters the house dressed in a red robe, with blue stockings and a black cap. He has with him a sword, made of the wood of the peach or date tree, the hilt and guard of which are covered with red cloth. Written in ink on the blade of the sword is a charm against ghosts. Advancing to the altar, the priest deposits his sword on it. He then prepares a mystic scroll, which he burns, collecting and emptying the ashes into ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... that "next to the origin of heraldry itself, perhaps nothing connected with it has given rise to so much controversy as the origin of this celebrated charge." It has been at various times asserted to be an Iris, a Lily, a sword-hilt, a spearhead, and a toad, or to be simply the Fleur de St. Louis. Adhuc sub judice lis est—and it is never likely to be satisfactorily settled. I need not therefore dwell on it, especially as my present ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... now, his kinsmen to rally? Where, where is the chieftain with timorous soul? On Linnhe's grey waters he crouched in his galley, And saw as a traitor the battle blast roll:— Ungrasped was the hilt of his broadsword, still sleeping, Unheard was his voice in the moment of need; Secure from the rage of fierce foemen, death-sweeping, He sought not by valour, his clansmen to lead. Linnhe, in scornful shame, Hissed out his humbled name, As fast sped his boat on its flight-seeking ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... towards Egypt, the only other power which still rivalled their prestige in the eyes of the world; and now, at Gaza, on the frontier between Africa and Asia, as in days gone by on the banks of the Euphrates or the Balikh, these two powers waited face to face, hand on hilt, each ready to stake the empire of the Asiatic world on a single ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... stuck my blade up through the lid. The package above was composed of something soft and yielding. I remembered that there was a canvas cover, but I drove the blade in to its hilt, and still it encountered nothing like wood—nothing that resembled the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... followers. He had served with little Akbar's grandfather, Babar the brave, and when he saw the child standing so fair and square, he gave almost a sharp cry of remembrance and delight. And when he stood up after his prostration, in soldier fashion he held out the hilt of his old sword for the baby to touch in token that its service was accepted. Queen Humeeda, who stood beside her little son, guided his fat fingers to the sword; but at the very moment a vivid flash of lightning made her give a shriek and cover her face with her ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... he laid the naked sword across the table. His right hand played with the jewelled hilt. Across his breast were medals and stars of honour given him by many monarchs. I think as we looked at our leader every man of us would have esteemed it honour to sail the seas in a tub if Pierre Radisson captained ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... a quick glance, but asked no questions. I could see he was enjoying his position, up to the hilt, considered the attentions of a trailer ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... Bridgets!—do me thine office quickly, Sir Shaveling! or by the Piper that played before Moses—" The oath was a fearful one; and whenever the Baron swore to do mischief, he was never known to perjure himself. He was playing with the hilt of his sword. "Do me thine office, I say. Give him ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... came from he saw a sword hanging from the roof. And the brightness of the Sword was such that the hall was well lighted. The King of Ireland's Son galloped the Slight Red Steed forward and made it rear up. His hand grasped the hilt of the Sword. As he pulled it down the ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... laden with new felony, So cumb'rous it may speedily sink the bark, The Ravignani sat, of whom is sprung The County Guido, and whoso hath since His title from the fam'd Bellincione ta'en. Fair governance was yet an art well priz'd By him of Pressa: Galigaio show'd The gilded hilt and pommel, in his house. The column, cloth'd with verrey, still was seen Unshaken: the Sacchetti still were great, Giouchi, Sifanti, Galli and Barucci, With them who blush to hear the bushel nam'd. Of the Calfucci still the branchy trunk Was in its strength: ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... toward him. Presently the Confederates appeared, and the whole company which had occupied this ground originally was surrounded. Ten men were killed and an equal number wounded, and then the officer in command, a lieutenant, held up his sword, hilt first, to which was tied a white handkerchief; and the battle in that vicinity ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... five or six persons whose movements to and fro caused the temporary eclipses they noticed. What the men were doing was not at once clear; but in the background rose the dark mass of a post-chaise, and seeing that—and one other thing—Sir George uttered a low exclamation and felt for his hilt. ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... crackled in the riverside quarter of Sault-au-Matelot. The assault had been beaten off, and close on four hundred prisoners were being marched up the hill followed by crowds of excited Quebecers. But John a Cleeve roamed the streets at random, alone, unconscious that all the while he gripped the hilt ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a hundred terrible little hammers. He thought of the Prince in the story which Christine had read aloud to him. The Prince, who was a fine and dashing fellow, had gone straight to the black enchanted cave where the dragon lived, and had thumped on the door with the hilt of his gold sword and shouted: "Open, Sesame!" And when the door opened, he had gone straight in, without turning a hair, and slain the dragon and ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... as he addressed us on the evening of our first drill, standing beside the two long nineteen-pounders on the Old Fort; erect, with a hand upon his ivory sword-hilt, his knops and epaulettes flashing against the level sun. I can see his very gesture as he enjoined silence on the band; for we had a band, and it was playing "Come, Cheer Up, My Lads!" As though ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there; we know that such exercises are the very tools of freedom and happiness, given by the gods to mortal men. We have taken their arms away from our slaves, and we must never lay our own aside, knowing well that the nearer the sword-hilt the closer the heart's desire. So. Does any man ask himself what profit he has gained from the fulfilment of his dreams, if he must still endure, still undergo hunger and thirst and toil and trouble and care? Let him learn ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... Loveday, "stabbed to the heart, and from behind. I found this blade as I examined your poor father's body. It was broken off close to the hilt, and left in the wound, which can hardly have bled at all. Death must have been immediate. It's a strange business, Jasper, and a strange blade by the ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and beautiful scene. Siegmund lies down to rest; the fire glimmers fitfully, then blazes up, revealing at the point on the trunk at which Sieglinda had gazed a shining sword-hilt, the blade embedded in the trunk. Still Siegmund does not understand, and the fire dies down; he is beginning to slumber when Sieglinda enters and calls him. He starts up; she has put a sleeping-powder in Hunding's cup, and they are safe; ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... shone full on the kneeling soldier figure, leaning on its sword, and on the grave, clear-cut face, which had a look of Charles. The long, beautifully modelled hands, clasped over the battered steel sword-hilt, were like Charles's too. Ruth read the inscription on the low marble pedestal, relating how he had fallen in the taking of the Redan, and then looked again. And gradually a great feeling of pity rose in her heart for the family which had lived here for so many generations, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... on the step, was an officer, perspiring, uniformed and plumed, and behind him a crowd of eager faces, white and black, that seemed to fill the street. He took a step into the room, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and poured out at me a torrent of Spanish of which I understood nothing. All at once his eye fell upon Helene, who was standing behind me, and he stopped in the middle of his speech and pulled off his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Jew lying upon his back before the ivory chair, like one dead, for he had ceased to cry out, and had swooned away. And then the Abbot Don Garcia Tellez looked at the body of the Cid, and saw that his right hand was upon the hilt of the sword, and that he had drawn it out a full palm's length; and he was greatly amazed. And he called for holy water, and threw it in the face of the Jew, and with that the Jew came to himself. Then the Abbot asked him what all this had been, and he ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... private individual I understand your meaning very well. But if I were here as your colonel, Lieutenant Adolf, by Heaven, sir, not all the officers of the Guard, past or present'—he rose to his feet as he spoke, and grasping the hilt of his sword glared round upon them—'should dare to hint at insult to a comrade!' and he drove the blade home with a clatter into its scabbard and strode out of the room as he had ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... the hangman's hand—am I one to will that? No man can accuse me of a forgiving spirit! I, too, loved your brother; I, too, believe in the blood debt! Ask me of this man himself, and I say, 'Right! Let him have it to the hilt—death and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... thee my child's devoured!" The frantic father cried, And to the hilt his vengeful sword He plunged in Gelert's side. His suppliant, as to earth he fell, No pity could impart; But still his Gelert's dying yell, ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... each other lest we should fall. This chanced also. The shock of the earth tremor, for such without doubt it was, threw down the figures of the ancient man and the lovely woman which knelt as though making prayers to Fate, and shook the marble sword from off its knees. As it fell Oro caught it by the hilt, and, rising, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the man-at-arms between the eyes, so that he fell like a stone. With savage curses the knave's comrades rushed in against the monk, but Rheinfrid caught up the Norman's sword, and with his grip on the hilt of it his old skill in war-craft came back to him, and he carried himself like a thane of the old Sea-wolves, and the joy of ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... working the gun, and paying no heed to the roar and confusion around, scarce even noticing when one beside me was struck down. You will be up on the poop, having naught to do but to stand with your hand on your sword hilt, and waiting to board an enemy or to drive back one who tries to board you. You will find that you will be well-nigh dazed and stupid with ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... is drawn on a virgin anvil, It is heated and hammered and rolled, It is shaped and tempered and burnished, And set in a hilt of gold; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... marked the place. Within, the flag waved no longer, but the rifle stood in the mimosa bush, and round it, with their wounds in front, lay the Fenian private and the silent ranks of the Irishry. Sentiment is not an English failing, but the Hussar captain raised his hilt in a salute as he rode past the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Gaunt panted in it. Was there ever night so silent? Following his lead, came the long column, a dark, even-moving mass, shirred with steel. Sometimes he could catch glimpses of some vivid point in the bulk: a hand, moving nervously to the sword's hilt; faces,—sensual, or vapid, or royal, side by side, but sharpened alike by a high purpose, with shut jaws, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... and he had met with his death by unusual means. These were the first two things of which Laverick assured himself. Without any doubt, a savage and a terrible crime had been committed. A hornhandled knife of unusual length had been driven up to the hilt through the heart of the murdered man. There had been other blows, notably about the head. There was not much blood, but the position of the knife alone told its ugly story. Laverick, though his nerves were of the strongest, felt his head swim as he looked. He rose to his feet ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest day. Of all the glad new year, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... monkeys acting monarchs, and tall figures all legs, flying with rapidity from pursuers who were all head; over this chimney were suspended some curious pieces of antique armour, among which an Italian dagger, with a chased and jewelled hilt, was the most ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... engaged in a suit at law it was only right that the opposite party should be assured that I would not escape before judgment was given. He asked very politely for my sword, and to my great regret I was compelled to give it him. The hilt was of steel, exquisitely chased; it was a present from Madame d'Urfe, and was worth at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... begged remission of his sins and confessed them, and Turpin gave him absolution; and suddenly a light came down upon him from heaven like a rainbow, accompanied with a sound of music, and an angel stood in the air blessing him, and then disappeared; upon which Orlando fixed his eyes on the hilt of his sword as on a crucifix, and embraced it, and said, "Lord, vouchsafe that I may look on this poor instrument as on the symbol of the tree upon which Thou sufferedst thy unspeakable martyrdom!" and so adjusting ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... other between the eyes, and there they found no fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt: They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... A good fellow withal, and "would strike." In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of quality that had drawn upon him; and pommelled him severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female—an occasion upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day bare-headed to the same person, modestly to excuse his interference—for L. never forgot ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... while a new escutcheon, displaying the insignia of the freshly acquired fiefs, quartered on the Burgundian arms, was carried before him. Kneeling at the emperor's feet, the duke laid two fingers on his sword hilt and repeated the oath of fealty and service in low but distinct tones. Other rites followed, and then Charles was proclaimed Duke ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... this to the hilt!" spluttered Fred. "I wouldn't have missed it for a fortune! We three are going to constitute ourselves a committee of inspection. We're going to wander the country over and report home to the newspapers—South African—British—U. S. A.—and any other part of the world that's interested! We ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Bridget was a warlike Irish chieftain, but a loyal subject of the King of Leinster, and on one occasion, that monarch bestowed upon him a rich sword, with the hilt set with costly jewels. Now the peasants on this chieftain's estates were very poor—indeed, suffering absolute starvation, and there was no one to help them, for their lord had enough to do to fight his enemies, without feeding his humble friends; and his wife, Bridget's stepmother, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... interpreter he addressed to them a few sentences, urging the necessity of continued harmony, and of a prompt expedition against the Turks, to be conducted both by sea and by land. After that, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword, he took the necessary oath: "I swear to shed my blood for the safety of the Greeks and for the liberation of their country; I swear that I will not abandon their cause so long as they do not themselves abandon it, but ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... gleaming hilt, girt for the fray Freedom demands, he cannot stay: Forward his motion, keen his glance: 'Tis ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and sets out to look for them. He finds Porthos and Aramis where he left them, nearly recovered from their wounds; and proceeding to Amiens, enters the hotel of the Golden Lily, and confronts the host—his whip in his right hand, his left on his sword-hilt, and evidently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Viking bequeathed the good weapon to Thorstein, his son, and Thorstein, To Odin ascended, bequeathed it to Fridthjof. Whenever he drew it, Light filled the hall as when northern lights entered, or lightning flashed through it. Hammered of gold was the hilt, with strange letters 'twas covered; Wonderful mysteries were they in Northland, but known to the people Who dwell near the gates of the sun, where our fathers lived ere ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... and Monastir were very bad, but that it was not advisable to publish them. In truth, we were hopelessly tied to Russia and could say nothing about her pet lambs, even though the truth of the accusations had been proved up to the hilt by the Carnegie Report. The laws signed by King Petar in October 1913 for the purpose of crushing the annexed regions are alone enough in their barbarity to condemn Serbia. They are published in the Carnegie Report, which ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... to the plantations: torture was freely applied, and the ingenious devices of the boot and the thumbkin were in daily requisition.[12] Dalziel was in his element. A prisoner reviled him at the council board for "a Muscovy beast who roasted men." The old savage struck the man with the hilt of his sword so fiercely in the mouth that ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... goes, If with them, or for their foes; If they must mourn, or must rejoice In that annihilating voice, Which pierces the deep hills through and through With an echo dread and new. * * * * * * * From the point of encountering blades to the hilt, Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, And all but the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... showed through the tan of his skin, then faded and left him livid—a very evil sight, as God lives. He flung his heavily-feathered hat upon the table, and carried his hand to his hilt. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... King Coel, as the admiral strode up and down before him, angrily playing with the hilt of his short Roman sword, "true enough, and I too have little cause to love this low-born emperor. He hath taken from me both my players and my gold, when I can illy spare either from my comfort or my necessities. 'T is a sad pass for Britain. But Rome is ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... hand aside and unbuttoned his pouch; but as he drew out the hilt of the broken sword, she caught a glimpse of that within ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... examined the guns admiringly. There were rows of daggers along shelves; some in sheath, others bare; one that had been hastily wiped showed a smear of ropy blood. He stood debating whether he should seize a sword for his protection. In the act of trying its temper on the floor, the sword-hilt was knocked from his hand, and he felt a coil of arms around him. He was in the imprisoning embrace of Barto Rizzo's wife. His first, and perhaps natural, impression accused her of a violent display of an eccentric passion for his manly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sword, and men were astonished as it flashed aloft. Its hilt was of gold, and blue stones were set therein. It measured two ells and a half from crossbar to point, and so bright was the broad blade that no one could look on it for long, and all ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... cut off short, and the water entering it from a crack in the rock, noiselessly as oil, trickled silently away in a little sloping gutter to the back of the cavern. Who first discovered the cavern I never knew, but by the fire lay, twisted and blackened, the hilt and half of a sword, and in a corner a black and rust-pitted breastplate. The back part of the cave narrowed, and through a passage the Nameless Man passed to bring us meat and drink. Have you walked on a bare moor road in the pit mirk wi' ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... manner of apparel, from chaperajos to weather-beaten denim; but, saddled or saddleless, across the neck of every beast stretched the barrel of a long rifle, at the hip of every rider hung a holster, from every belt peeped the hilt of a great knife. Long ere this word of the unusual had passed about, and now, on the rise of ground at the back of the stockade, a goodly group had gathered. Silent as the prairies, as the morning itself, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... obeyed the king. He brought a brass sword with a silver hilt to Odysseus, and said: "My father, if I have uttered any offensive word to thee, may the winds scatter all remembrance of it. May the gods grant thee a speedy return to thy country, where thou shalt see thy wife and friends from whom thou ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... and so thick they stood, that shield overlapped shield all round the ship, and a spear-point stood out at the lower end of every shield. Olaf walked fore to the prow, and was thus arrayed: he had a coat of mail, and a gold-reddened helmet on his head; girt with a sword with gold-inlaid hilt, and in his hand a barbed spear chased and well engraved. A red shield he had before him, on which was drawn a lion in gold. When the Irish saw this array fear shot through their hearts, and they thought it would not be so easy a matter as ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... and I ask the reader to say whether the charge is unsupported or not. That overtures have again and again been made sub rosa to the clergy to wean them from the popular side is proved up to the hilt, but that in any single instance they have closed with the offers or been forced by the rigours of ecclesiastical discipline into compliance, appears to me not proven, as is also the imputation that the people have in any degree departed from the lines of O'Connell's dictum—that we take our theology ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... thou?" repeated the warrior angrily. His patience was short; he played with the hilt ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... had his cue, and delivered his message with great distinctness and steadiness, the effect on the dependants of the household was very evident. Sir Reginald's face flushed, while Sir Gervaise bit his lip; Bluewater played with the hilt of his sword, very indifferent to all that was passing; while Atwood and the surgeons shrugged their shoulders and smiled. The first of these persons well knew that Tom had no shadow of a claim to the title he had been in so much haste to assume, however, and he hoped that ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... now and then an opening in the smoke showed the Spanish captain, in his suit of black steel armor, standing cool and proud, guiding and pointing, careless of the iron hail, but too lofty a gentleman to soil his glove with aught but a knightly sword-hilt; while Amyas and Will, after the fashion of the English gentlemen, had stripped themselves nearly as bare as their own sailors, and were cheering, thrusting, hewing, and hauling, here, there, and everywhere, like any common mariner, and filling them with a spirit of self-respect, fellow-feeling, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... tosspot-feather, Twisted his thumb in his red moustache, Jingled his huge brass spurs together, Tightened his waist with its Buda sash, And then, with an impudence nought could abash, Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the beholder, For twenty such knaves he would laugh but the bolder: And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting, And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting, Went the ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... And Rold kissed the hilt of it, and it was salt upon his lips with the battle-sweat of Welleran. And Rold said: 'What should a man do with ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... course did not understand the words, the fierce voice in which the old warrior intoned the chant made them realize what a terrible foe he was likely to prove in battle. But now as Sikaso brought his song to a conclusion and rested his axe on the ground, leaning on its hilt, he suddenly stiffened into an attitude of ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... came up, accosted them, and, with the authority of a magistrate, asked who they were. The young man of whom I have just spoken replied, and without touching his turban (inasmuch as with one of his hands he held his gun and with the other the hilt of his sword, lest it should get between his legs) told the Provost that they were French by birth, actors by profession, that his stage-name was Le Destin, that of his old comrade La Rancune, and that of the lady who was perched like a hen on the top of their baggage, La Caverne. This ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... handed it, hilt first, to his conqueror. Jack took it, and, placing it across his knee, snapped ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... worked his hand under his prone body, feeling for the hilt of his knife. With that he could speedily remove himself from the status of Throg prisoner, and he would do it gladly if there was no hope of escape. Had there been only one charge left in that blaster? Shann could make half a dozen guesses as to why the other had made no move, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... drawl the outlaw wheeled like a flash, his hand traveling to the hilt of the revolver that hung on his hip. But he was too late. Already two revolvers covered him, and he knew that both his cousin and McWilliams were dead shots. He flashed one venomous look at the mistress ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... the night he buckled on a saber, the blade of which, by reason of its having been broken, was barely eight inches long, and the hilt whereof was battered and rusty. He also stuck a huge brass-mounted cavalry pistol in his belt, in the virtue of which he had great faith, having only two days before shot with it a green-headed parrot at a ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, as if he would rush off at once to recover his possessions; then recollecting that he was at a distance from Allahapoor, he made further inquiries of the fakir, whose answers confirmed him in the belief that the man ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... Somehow the answer seemed to come to that question, for he suddenly clapped his hand to its side, drew a long, thin, triangular-bladed sword from its sheath, and admiringly and caressingly examined the beautiful chased and engraved open-work steel hilt and guard, giving it a rub here and there with his dark velvet sleeve. Then he crossed to the great open carved mantelpiece, took hold of the point of the sword, passing the blade over so that the hilt rested ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... large, evil-looking knife still caked with the mud of the deadly affray, but bearing legibly in Italian on its blade the inscription, 'He who gets me in his body never need take a medicine,' and with a hilt and scabbard ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... once more to greet him, the light flashed from her face and her eyes, as if her heart had been a fountain of rosy flame. Beauchamp was magnificent, the rather quiet tartan of his clan being lighted up with all the silver and jewels of which the dress admits. In the hilt of his dirk, in his brooch, and for buttons, he wore a set of old family topazes, instead of the commoner cairngorm, so that as he entered he flashed golden light from the dark green cloud of his tartan. Not observing Alec, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... stranger, Father Jose beheld him gravely draw his pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply it decorously ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... done and clearly won high approval from a horseman who at the moment came at a trot through the gate, with a second troop behind him, and was saluted by the returning squadron with, one flash of sword-blades, all together, hilt brought to chin and every blade pointing straight in air—a flourish almost as pretty as the feat it concluded. He too held his sword before him with point upright, but awkwardly; and though he sat his saddle well, his bearing had more of civil ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... cuirass was punished with imprisonment. The laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting words to another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; and the offender was obliged to solicit pardon of his majesty. If one threatened another by clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he was to be assomme according to the ordinance; which may either mean knocked down, or soundly mauled—or the two together. If two men came to blows, they were both assomme. A still more serious breach of politeness, however, was ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... [a pair of boots that have been candle—eases; one buckled, another lac'd; an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless, with two broken points] Bow a sword should have two broken points, I cannot tell. There is, I think, a transposition caused by the seeming relation of point to sword. I read, a pair of boots, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Grant thy sorrowing sire Forgiveness that he fled thy last embrace. Not yet has passed thy life blood from the wound Nor yet is death upon thee — still thou may'st (31) Outlive thy parent." Thus he spake, and seized The reeking sword and drave it to the hilt, Then plunged into the deep, with headlong bound, To anticipate his son: for this he feared A single form of ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... shall never forget. There sat the intended victim, whose soul was hovering on the awful precincts of an endless eternity; there stood the avenger of her own wrongs, her right hand nervously grasping the hilt of the weapon in her bosom, her face deadly pale, and her eyes flashing with wild excitement. And there I stood, trembling with agitation, and ready to spring forward at the proper time to prevent the consummation of ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... and in an eiderdown quilt. Her plentiful, soft, brown hair was arranged in a manner new to Chance Along, and stuck through with a wonderful comb of amber shell and gold, and a pin with a jewelled hilt. The ornaments for the hair had been supplied by Mother Nolan, who had possessed them for the past thirty years, hidden away in the bottom of a nunney-bag. Her own son, the late skipper, had salvaged them from a wreck. Flora had her own rings on her ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... first to each other, and then to their opposing principals. In those days, duels were mostly fought with the combatants' own swords. And now Von Dessauer took my blade, and, going forward courteously, handed the hilt to Count Cannstadt, receiving that of Von Reuss in return. The seconds then compared the lengths, and found almost half an inch in favor of my opponent. Which being declared, and I offering no objection, the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett |
