"Scimitar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cartridge cases in the breast and trimmed and lined with fur, a silver-lace belt round his waist, white gloves with fur backs, and green trousers with a silver stripe down the legs; yellow boots, a curved scimitar behind, and a richly-jewelled dagger in his belt in front completed his costume. He was a very fine-looking fellow, and was most evidently aware of the fact. He was on good terms with every one, and laughed and chatted with all the officers of rank. Such were some ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... there was a touch of frost; the sky was clear and hard, the stars shone with sharp brilliance, some of them had long, slanting rays on either hand that looked like wings of light; a new moon glittered among them, keen and clean, and vindictive as a scimitar; in the quiet, the low murmur of the Broadwater pervaded the night. Judith watched her sister with unconsciously appraising eyes, noting the straight slenderness of her figure, the small, high-held, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... flinch when t'ward the Christian west The fell invasion of the Saracen Headed its course with crimson scimitar; Supplanting the mild precepts of the Cross With those of lust, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... there is a cause. Sleep fell not on me nor did the steed bear me hither but for my good fortune; for of a surety this damsel and what is with her shall be my prize." So he turned back and mounted and drew his scimitar; then he gave his horse the spur and he started off with him, like an arrow from a bow, whilst he brandished his naked blade and cried out, "God is Most Great!" When the damsel saw him, she sprang to her feet and running to the bank of the river, which was there six cubits ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... When the bright scimitar edge sunk behind Nine-Mile Point he arose with a beating heart. Making his blankets into a bundle, he took his way once more around the strip of beach, his moccasined feet falling ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... killed than I, for if I were to be killed a second time, Khuda would not give me my life again; but I can bring you to life if you are killed." Now Chumman Basa had come quite near, and seemed very pleasant, so thought Prince Majnun; but when he was speaking to Majnun, he drew his scimitar and cut off the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... hand on scimitar, Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war— "The saber of the Sultaun in its sheath Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death, Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle, Bang the loud gong, and raise the shout of battle! This dreary cloud that dims ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Magliana, in the neighbourhood of Ostia. Toward nightfall (as I have elsewhere related), happening from a little hill to look in the direction of Florence, I saw an extraordinary phenomenon, namely, a heavenly body in the shape of a Turkish scimitar, its blade directed toward the city. Whereat I exclaimed loudly, "We shall certainly hear that some great event has occurred ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to draw his scimitar). The woman is mine: I will not forego her. (He is seized and ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... like a scimitar shone a ray of light from above, widening as it descended and ending in a white patch on the floor. It was moved to and fro. Then it disappeared. Another vague creaking sound followed—that caused by a man's weight being ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... practice of assassination must have been required to perfect that most awful weapon in Nature, the paw of a tiger, or, indeed, of any cat, for they are all of one pattern. The sharpened flint of the savage has become the scimitar of Saladin, keeping the keenness of its edge in a velvet sheath and flashing out only on the field of battle. Compare that paw with the foot of a dog, and you will, perhaps, see with me that the servility and pliancy of the slave of man has usurped a place in his esteem ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... The village clock struck one. The distant call of a hunting owl, "Qu-wheek, qu-wheek!" sounded through the grave stillness of this last night of May. The moon at her curve's summit floated at peace on the blue surface of the sky, a great closed water-lily. And Martin saw through the trees scimitar-shaped reeds clustering black along the pool's shore. All about him the may-flowers were alight. It was such a night as makes dreams real and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... until, in the end, his wife persuaded him, and he accepted pledges of good faith. After this they met, and Syennesis gave Cyrus large sums in aid of his army; while Cyrus presented him with the customary royal gifts—to wit, a horse with a gold bit, a necklace of gold, a gold bracelet, and a gold scimitar, a Persian dress, and lastly, the exemption of his territory from further pillage, with the privilege of taking back the slaves that had been seized, wherever they might chance ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... flews skimmed the ground; her sensitive nostrils questioned almost every blade of grass, her brain automatically registering every particle of information so obtained, and guiding her feet accordingly. Her strong tail waved above and behind her in the curve of an Arab scimitar. She ceased to be the Lady Desdemona and became simply a bloodhound at work; an epitome of the whole complex science of tracking. Finn trotted admiringly beside her, his muzzle never passing her shoulder; and ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... inhabitants, and that thus the number of the followers of Buddha might increase. The gods attended to this petition, and ordered Menjoo Dev’ to evacuate the waters by making a cut through the mountains. This he performed with one blow of his scimitar, and ever since, the waters of the Vagmati have flowed through the gap, which he then formed. The spirit who had presided over the lake was a large serpent, who, finding his water become scanty, and the dry land beginning every where to appear, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... of fit or was simply trying to follow through. When restored to perpendicular was found to have ball deeply embedded in his person. Disqualified for handling. MEHMED (a left-hander; uses clubs with scimitar-shaped shafts) puts his drive over short slip into the club-house kitchen. C.P., after converting Aisne Bunker into mine crater, picks up. M., hopelessly bunkered in the Irish Stew, also picks up. F. holes out in a stealthy nineteen. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 - 1917 Almanack • Various
... too fast. The first thing my father did, after getting on board the little Channel steamer, was to go down in the cabin and drink a glass of brandy-and-water, hot, with sugar; and he afterwards remarked that "this sea-passage was the only enjoyable part of the day." But the wind cut like a scimitar, and he came on deck occasionally only—as when I came plunging down the companion-way to tell him, with the pride of a discoverer, that France was broad in sight, and the sun was shining on it. "Oh!" exclaimed my mother, looking up from her, pale discomfortableness on a sofa, with ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... said shortly; "but there was small credit in that when we were fighting for our lives. The most cowardly beast will fight under such circumstances. When you see a Moslem rushing at you, scimitar in hand, and know that if you do not cut him down he will cut you down, you naturally strike as hard and as quickly as you can. You have never liked Gervaise, Rivers. I am sure I don't know why, but you always speak in a contemptuous sort of tone about ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... shade, and the irregular, contorted, honeycombed surface which produces it; craggy, scarred, indented mountains, "like an old lion's cheek-teeth";[79] old towns with huddled roofs and towers picked out "black and crooked," like "fretwork," or "Turkish verse along a scimitar"; old walls, creviced and crannied, intertwined with creepers, and tenanted by crossing swarms of ever-busy flies,—such things are the familiar commonplace of Browning's sculpturesque fancy. His metrical movements are full of the same joy in ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... him. Beyond them the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood. Above it was a new moon, like a gleaming silver scimitar. Sara saw it was over her left shoulder, and she saw Lige's face above her, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a long siege. The ladders must be put against the walls, the breach must be clambered through, and if the citadel be strong, the rash onset will be repulsed with heavy loss. But Hope dotes on youth. The young are her flock, her fold, her children. Into the hands of her children she puts the scimitar of courage, and bids them go forth again. Let us suppose you have been cast down your ladder, and have little but your courage. It may be necessary to leave your pleasant little town and seek employment where men are used as machines—in the great cities. Such a fate ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... comet, in 1858, assumed the most varied shapes—sometimes its tail was broad, with one bright and curving edge, the other fainter and finer, the whole making up a stupendous semi-circular blade-like object. Later, the tail was shaped like a scimitar, and later again, it assumed a ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... the Gulf of Saros, is the peninsula of Gallipoli, where a critical phase of the war was fought. It is somewhat like the blade of a scimitar, covering the entrance to the Sea of Marmora. Between this strip of land and the coast of Asia Minor is a narrow strait, the outer mouth of which is called the Dardanelles, the inner gateway being the famous Hellespont. Here it ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... you could suddenly walk into this valley, which seems to have been made by the flashing scimitar of the river that cuts through the mountain. Ah! you in England, and in Belgium still less, do not know what scenery is, what Nature is when she is natural. You could as soon guess at a tiger from the cat on the hearthstone. You do not know; but, being a poet, you can dream. You have divine insights, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... his broad scimitar, Ridley is riding his fleet-footed grey, Hedley and Howard there, Wandale and Windermere,— Lock the door, Lariston, hold them at bay. Why dost thou smile, noble Elliot of Lariston? Why do the joy-candles gleam in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and only just allowed the fifteen days' "notice to quit" to expire, before he showed Russia and the world that the Turks had a general, and that with a general they were still soldiers, as when the blazing scimitar of Orchan first flashed upon Europe, or Byzantium shook before the thunder of the artillery of Mohammed II. They were still worthy of their father, Osman, the "Bone-breaker;" and, in hand-to-hand combat, an overmatch ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... forget the night he came down as the Char of Persia, I think he called it—a sort of Eastern King it was. He had the big paper knife in his hand, and 'Mind, Dorcas,' he says, 'you'll have to be very respectful. This is my specially sharpened scimitar, and it's off with your head if I'm at all displeased with you!' Miss Cynthia, she was what they call an Apache, or some such name—a Frenchified sort of cut-throat, I take it to be. A real sight she ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... was read over to the emperor he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up the several particulars. He first called for my scimitar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the meantime he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops (who then attended him) to surround me at a distance, with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge; but I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly fixed upon his majesty. He then ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... think of the wanderers poor who knelt on the flints and the sands, When the mighty and merciless Moor was lord of the Lady of Lands. Where the African scimitar flamed, with a swift, bitter death in its kiss, The fathers, unknown and unnamed, found God in cathedrals like this! The glow of His Spirit—the beam of His blessing—made lords of the men Whose food was the herb of the stream, whose roof was the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... ball their sight Sears with excess of light; Or through dun sand-clouds the blue scimitar's edge Slopes down like fire from heaven, Mowing them as the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... camese common among the Albanians; and while his feet were protected by sandals, the lower part of his legs was guarded by greaves of embroidered green velvet. From a broad belt of scarlet leather peeped forth the jewelled hilts of a variety of daggers, and by his side was an enormous scimitar, in a scabbard of ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... full moon had just risen above a tope of tamarind trees, and its silvern radiance revealed every detail of the scene. A Rajput chief occupied the place of central prominence, cushions arranged for his convenience, on one of which rested his scimitar, the emblem of his soldierly profession. Not far from him, in a half-reclining posture, was a general of the Afghans, also of the bodyguard of the Emperor. A hakeem, or physician, and an astrologer, both in the Moslem style of dress, were seated close together, ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... Dragut, and an army quite as fierce and numerous as that which was baffled before Gibraltar, by similar courage and resolution. The sword of the last-named famous corsair (a most truculent little scimitar), thousands of pikes and halberts, little old cannons and wall-pieces, helmets and cuirasses, which the knights or their people wore, are trimly arranged against the wall, and, instead of spiking Turks ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... modest for his own favor, fought like a lion in this pitch of battle, making all the faint-hearted around him ashamed to do ill with such an example contiguous. General Bartlett, keen-faced and active like a fiery scimitar, was leading his division as if he were an immortal! He was closest at hand in the most gallant episodes, and held at nightfall a bundle of captured battle-flags. But Griffin, tall and slight, was the master-genius of the Fifth corps, to which by right he has temporarily succeeded. He led ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... my Lord, he drew his scimitar, and was about to—— But excuse me, Sultan, I observe, through the oriel window, something that looks remarkably like the streak of dawn, and, if you don't mind, I'll continue ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... 27. Afterwards, when they had met, Syennesis gave Cyrus a large sum of money for the support of his army, and Cyrus in return presented him with such gifts as are held in estimation by a king, a horse with a golden bit, a golden chain and bracelets, and a golden scimitar and Persian robe. He also engaged that his country should no more be plundered, and that he should receive back the captured slaves, if ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... their hearts were in spite of all, though the flesh-pots of the West End of London had turned them into by-paths for a while. The skin had been scratched by Krool's insolence and the knowledge of his treachery, and the Tartar showed—the sjambok his scimitar. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... near a great bush of azaleas in full bloom. Almost over their heads the silver crescent of the new moon hung poised like a fairy scimitar. It was exquisite and unreal. Nancy felt somehow out of place in the lovely picture, while the young Japanese, standing intense and rigid beside her, was as much a part of the Oriental garden as the stone lantern and the fragrant spice bush near the path. Even his blue serge ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... knowledge of lovely spiritual ecstasies, the realization of rich human delights. Sorrow and cruel loss might be on their way, but Joy was hers now. She feigned that Karl was waiting for her a little way on in the warm darkness—on, around that scimitar-shaped bend of the beach. She chose to believe that he was running to meet her, his eyes aflame, his great arms outstretched; she thrilled to the rain of his kisses; she thought those stars might hear the voice with which he ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... There is a touch of Judith, of Jael, of Deborah in it,—no quarter, no delay, no mercy for the enemies of the Most High; 'He smote.' And when for variety's sake the scimitar-phrase is transferred from orchestra to voices, it is admirable to see how the same character of the falchion—of hip-and-thigh warfare, of victory predominant—is sustained in the music till the last bar. If we have from Handel a scorn-chorus in the 'Messiah,' and here a disgust-chorus, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Royal Guard, and still wore their blue cloaks. The excessively whimsical get-up of the officers put the finishing touch to this motley show. Most of them had adopted the Mameluke dress—white turbans, huge trousers, yellow boots, a sun embroidered on their backs, and a scimitar. After the Zouaves I saw the squadron of "Chasseurs Algeriens," the nucleus of the future "Chasseurs d'Afrique," march past. They wore Turkish dress and turbans too, all but their commanding officer, a big bearded artillery captain, who wore a burnous and Arab pistols over his uniform. His name ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... and proceeded to dress with all despatch; but, to my misery, I discovered every where nothing but theatrical robes and decorations—there lay a splendid turban, here a pair of buskins—a spangled jacket glittered on one table, and a jewelled scimitar on the other. At last I detected my "regimental small-clothes," &c. Most ignominiously thrust into a corner, in my ardour for my Moorish robes ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... which may be seen at the Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when King Edward I made a military progress through Suffolk and Norfolk, and kept his Easter at Norwich. The blade is scimitar-shaped, is one-edged, and has a groove at the back. We may compare this with the sword of the time of Edward IV now in the possession of Mr. Seymour Lucas. The development of riding-boots is an interesting study. We show a drawing of one ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... youth; and as he had never felt anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming scimitar-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye—for there was no twilight, and this night no moon—the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for one. He was no longer the ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... very still—a sharp night, with a thin moon, like a scimitar, hanging bright in the sky, and a myriad of intense stars blinking in the heavens, above the steep roofs and spiral chimneys of Brandon Hall, and the ancient trees that ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... stretched out her arms, motioning him away. And now courage returned to Haschem. Resolved to venture all, he stepped before the Princess, and gave the deformity such a blow that he reeled. He instantly assumed the form of a terrible dragon; but Haschem, drawing a scimitar which he still wore, cut him down. He fell with such violence on the corner of the pedestal of one of the marble pillars that it was broken to pieces: a stream of blood flowed from the wound, and, resuming his former shape, the monster gave a hollow groan. Now Haschem ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the Veil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur, on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with its ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... to them, we fired our pistols in their faces, and then drew; but they fled in the greatest confusion imaginable; the only stand any of them made was on our right, where three of them stood, and, by signs, called the rest to come back to them, having a kind of scimitar in their hands, and their bows hanging at their backs. Our brave commander, without asking any body to follow him, galloped up close to them, and with his fusil knocked one of them off his horse, killed the second with his pistol, and the third ran away; and thus ended our fight; but we had this ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar? ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Prohibition. He had drafted a bill for the suppression of tippling houses and placed in it a claim of the right of the civil authorities to search all premises where it was suspected that intoxicating liquors were kept for sale, and to seize and confiscate them on the spot. It was this sharp scimitar of search and seizure which gave the original Maine law its deadly power. He took his bill to the seat of government and it was promptly passed by the legislature. He brought it home in triumph, and in less than three months there was not an open dram ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay and joyous little noises, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... beseeching all the while the aid of Swayambhu in prayer. In the second circuit, when he had reached the central barrier mountain to the south, he became satisfied that that was the best place whereat to draw off the waters of the lake. Immediately he struck the mountain with his scimitar, when the sundered rock gave passage to the waters, and the bottom of the lake became dry. He then descended from the mountain, and began to walk about the valley in all directions."—The Phoenix, Vol. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... their newspaper letters, excelling in that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle's review of "St. Elmo," or Gail Hamilton's criticism of "The Story of Avis," while Mrs. Rollins, in the Critic, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the public that his "solemn ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... poor and miserable Spaniard; and though the wound was not mortal, it sufficed to show that neither courage nor opportunity were wanting to the would-be-assassin. A Dervish, or Turkish priest, drew his scimitar on Bajazet, father of the Sultan now reigning, and if he did not wound him, it was from no lack either of daring or of opportunity. And I believe that there are many who in their minds desire the deed, no punishment or danger ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... HASSAN: Ibrahim's scimitar Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven, To burn before him in the night of battle— 365 A light and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... battle she should carry me as she has done a score of times; but, as you say, this will not be like fighting in the desert, when man singles out man, and one's life depends as much upon the intelligence and quickness of the horse as upon one's skill with spear and scimitar. Two of my followers shall take our three horses back to our camp in the desert. You and Sidi are already mounted. One of the men shall give me his horse, and shall ride on Sidi's; each will then have but one to lead. If my son and I are killed, the two horses will be ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... pressed back, glanced round to see why support did not arrive, and saw that there were already thirty feet of water between the two vessels. He was about to spring overboard, when the Moors made a desperate rush, his guard was beaten down, a blow from a Moorish scimitar fell on his head, and he ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... sporting door" after them, upon her young mistress and herself. If there had been any danger, grinning Martha said she would have got down "that thar hooky soord which hung up in gantleman's room,"—meaning the Damascus scimitar with the names of the Prophet engraved on the blade and the red-velvet scabbard, which Percy Sibwright, Esquire, brought back from his tour in the Levant, along with an Albanian dress, and which he wore with such elegant effect at Lady Mullinger's fancy ball, Gloucester-square, Hyde ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Afghanistan (22. Mr. Blyth, in 'Land and Water,' March, 1867, p. 134, on the authority of Capt. Hutton and others. For the wild Pembrokeshire goats, see the 'Field,' 1869, p. 150.), rear on their hind legs, and then not only butt, but "make a cut down and a jerk up, with the ribbed front of their scimitar-shaped horn, as with a sabre. When the O. cycloceros attacked a large domestic ram, who was a noted bruiser, he conquered him by the sheer novelty of his mode of fighting, always closing at once with his adversary, and catching him across the face and nose with a sharp ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... and tucking up the sleeve of his gown, showed his arm, thin indeed and spare, but which constant exercise had hardened into a mass consisting of nought but bone, brawn, and sinew. He unsheathed his scimitar, a curved and narrow blade, which glittered not like the swords of the Franks, but was, on the contrary, of a dull blue colour, marked with ten millions of meandering lines, which showed how anxiously the metal had been welded by the armourer. Wielding this weapon, apparently so inefficient ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... distance; less than half a cable's length was now between the boat and the struggling swimmer. Not a shark was to be seen on the water, nor beneath it—no fish of any kind—nothing whatever in the sea. Only, in the sky above, a large bird, whose long scimitar-shaped wings and grand curving beak told them what it was—an albatross. It was the great albatross of the Indian seas, with an extent of wing beyond that of the largest eagle, and almost equalling the spread of the South ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... little Israelite, A world of hidden dimples!—Dusky-eyed, A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride, With hair escaped from some Arabian Night, Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white, Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside The bamboo hat she cocks with so much pride, Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight. And when she passes with the dreadful boys And romping girls, the cockneys loud and crude, My ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... Judaea—have conquered the whole world save a few savage tribes. Ever since the cry of "There is no God but Allah and Mahomet is his prophet" had aroused the Arabian nomads from their age-long slumber, it was as a religious warfare that the contest of the continents revealed itself. After the scimitar had swept the Greek Empire out of Asia Minor and had cut Spain from Christendom, the crusades and the rise of the Spanish kingdoms had gradually beaten it back. But while the Saracen was being slowly but surely driven from the western ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... cloister, from the ceiling of which an occasional lamp threw a gleam upon some Eastern arms hung up against the wall. This passage led to the armory, a room of moderate dimensions, but hung with rich contents. Many an inlaid breastplate—many a Mameluke scimitar and Damascus blade—many a gemmed pistol and pearl embroided saddle might there be seen, though viewed in a subdued and quiet light. All seemed hushed and still, and shrouded in what had the reputation of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... generals of Muza was a gaunt swarthy veteran, scarred with wounds; a very Arab, whose great delight was roving and desperate enterprise; and who cared for nothing beyond his steed, his lance, and his scimitar. He was a native of Damascus; his name was Taric ben Zeyad; but, from having lost an eye, he was known among the Spaniards by the appellation of Taric el Tuerto, or ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... strikes me as resembling something I have seen before—in an engraving from an historical picture, I think; only, it is there the principal figure in a group: he is holding a lady by her hair, and threatening her with his scimitar, while two cavaliers are rushing up the stairs, apparently only just in time to ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... champ on the bit: The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit; The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar, And crush the wall they have crumbled before: Forms in his phalanx each janizar; Alp at their head; his right arm is bare, So is the blade of his scimitar; The khan and the pachas are all at their post; The vizier himself at the head of the host. When the culverin's signal is fired, then on; Leave not in Corinth a living one— A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, A hearth in her mansions, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... pale Reschid speaks. Among the dead we mourned a thousand Greeks. Lone from the field the Pasha fled afar, And, musing, wiped his reeking scimitar; His two dead steeds upon the sands were flung, And on their sides their empty ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... of profane historians has told us that the Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they elevated an old scimitar upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To this scimitar they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main wealth of the country, and more costly sacrifices than ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the sultan of discretion was driven from his post, and confusion had taken possession of the garrison. The noise awakened the master of the mansion, who was first overwhelmed with surprise, but soon recollecting himself, he seized his trusty scimitar, and expeditiously roused his servants, who forthwith attacked the sons of disorder, and with very little pains or risk extended them ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... journey ta'en With twenty vassals in his train, 520 Each armed, as best becomes a man, With arquebuss and ataghan; The chief before, as decked for war, Bears in his belt the scimitar Stained with the best of Arnaut blood, When in the pass the rebels stood, And few returned to tell the tale Of what befell in Parne's vale. The pistols which his girdle bore Were those that once a Pasha wore, 530 Which still, though ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... of September, a great battle was fought. Saladin and his brother had almost defeated the two Religious Orders, and the gallant French knight, Jacques d'Avesne, after losing his leg by a stroke from a scimitar, fought bravely on, calling on the English King, until he fell overpowered by numbers. Coeur de Lion and Guillaume des Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all sides, and remained masters of the field. It is even said that Richard ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... pas they have the pasnjaca, a band of red leather covering part of the abdomen, with various divisions, in which they used to carry their rich arms, pistols, knives, &c., now filled with the pipe, pipe-cleaner, britva, a very small scimitar with a bone handle, and a small knife in a sheath. Finally, there is the koporan, a jacket with sleeves of blue cloth, with embroidery on the elbows and back; but ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... pain, torture, and misery which they had been instrumental in inflicting on their countrymen for the gratification of their avarice, filthy passions, and pride; the new Mahometans were at hand - Arab, Persian, and Afghan, with the glittering scimitar upraised, full of zeal for the glory and adoration of the one high God, and the relentless persecutors of the idol-worshippers. Already, in the four hundred and twenty-sixth year of the Hegeira, we read of ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... At its upper edges were clipped bushes and split trees, the white wood of the latter showing where they had been sliced as though by the stroke of a scimitar. ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... shoulder of the coombe, a great flat bay, the sea white along the brown edge of it, swept away scimitar-wise into the mist. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Quaker statesman of Great Britain, pointed out the fallacy of this policy. He called it, "Worshipping the scimitar" and predicted that it would invite war instead of preventing it. But the din of the munition factories drowned the voice of protest and the civilized world—yes, the Christian world—went into a prepared war, each nation protesting ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... permission to include certain poems which were first published in Reflections; Chipmunk; Scimitar and Song: Whispers; Calaveras Californian; Calaveras Prospect; Sunshine and Rain; Brown Plumes; Tulsa Tribune; Sonnets from Americanese: Fireside Chatter; Song and Story; The Arc; United We Sing; The Authors of ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... this sword was not amongst the articles so disposed of. It had probably been disposed of beforehand, but to whom I never knew; yet I think it not unlikely that it is still in the neighbourhood. The sword was a little curved, scimitar-like, rather thick, broad blade, and had every appearance of being the Black Prince's sword." Truly a most remarkable story. This historic blade, which may have hewn down the French ranks at Poitiers, is disposed of by an itinerant crockery vender to an antiquarian ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... the king did not know how the battle of the muse was to be waged. He had no sleep at night. The mighty figure of the famous Pundarik, his sharp nose curved like a scimitar, and his proud head tilted on one side, haunted the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... voice of a man. "What!" said he, "poring over the faces of dead men, when you should be foremost among the living? All Jerusalem in arms, and yet you scorn your time to gain laurels?" I sprang up, and drew my scimitar, for the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... in the tail, of which there are three pair, and which are eminently characteristic of the male sex, differ much in the various breeds. They are scimitar-shaped in some Hamburghs, instead of being long and flowing as in the typical breeds. They are extremely short in Cochins, and are not at {255} all developed in Hennies. They are carried, together with the whole tail, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... while Blue Beard, holding a great scimitar in his hand, cried out as loud as he could ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... saw the tiny, tiny burst of brightness on one side of that globe, saw a tiny whisp of yellow, cutting an arc from the edge, moving farther and farther into the black circle of space around the Earth, slicing like a thin scimitar, moving higher and higher, and then, magically, winking out, leaving a tiny, evaporating ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... earlier at two thousand years, more or less, we of that generation were truly singular in our opportunity of viewing this, among the very few "most magnificent of modern times." The tail, broadening towards the end, with a curve like that of a scimitar, was in length nearly a fourth of the span of the heavens, and its brightness that of a full moon. My memory retains the image with all ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... instrument at Prag (or Allahabad). Durgavati, a famous Queen on the Nerbada, who fell in battle with the troops of Akbar, is asserted in a family inscription to have "severed her own head with a scimitar she held in her hand." According to a wild legend told at Ujjain, the great king Vikramajit was in the habit of cutting off his own head daily, as an offering to Devi. On the last performance the head failed to re-attach itself ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... towered in the dusk, his huge eyes rolling, and his hand on the hilt of a scimitar, which looked as though it had been tempered more for use ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... do next when a body of some twoscore horsemen swept down upon them. The leader might have been either Turk or Frank. He was as dark as a Saracen and wore the chain-mail, scimitar and light helmet of the heathen, but he spoke Levantine rather too well for a Moor, ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... who would more of Spain and Spaniards know[dj] Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife: Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe Can act, is acting there against man's life: From flashing scimitar to secret knife, War mouldeth there each weapon to his need— So may he guard the sister and the wife, So may he make each curst oppressor bleed— So may such foes ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... of the spoils of the chase, being in reality a surcoat composed of strong shaggy silk, so woven as to exhibit, at a little distance, no inaccurate representation of a bear's hide. A light crooked sword, or scimitar, sheathed in a scabbard of gold and ivory, hung by the left side of the stranger, the ornamented hilt of which appeared much too small for the large-jointed hand of the young Hercules who was thus gaily attired. A ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... behind the other, foaming over the hidden rocks, splashing wildly against the grim wall of granite that stood sharp-edged to withstand them. It was curved like a scimitar, that rock, and within its curve there slept, when the tide was low, a pool. When the tide rose the waters raged and thundered all around the rock, but when it sank again the still, deep pool remained, unruffled as a mountain tarn and ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... sword" (p. 96). But we may confidently hold that this, at any rate, is but a manner of speaking. Even if the God is real, his sword is metaphoric. Mr. Wells is not seriously proposing to take his cue from his Mohammedan friends, raise the cry of "Allahu Akbar!" and propagate his gospel scimitar in hand. It is hard to see, then, what other method there can be of dealing with the heathen, except the method of the ballot-box—of course with proportional representation. When there are no more heathen—when the whole world ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... followed, armed, to see that he came to no harm. He was carried before the Sultan, who ordered the executioner to cut off his head. The executioner made Aladdin kneel down, bandaged his eyes, and raised his scimitar to strike. At that instant the Vizier, who saw that the crowd had forced their way into the courtyard and were scaling the walls to rescue Aladdin, called to the executioner to stay his hand. The people, indeed, looked so threatening ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... of a sneering devil, English satire leaves a deadly poison in the wound it makes. Arabella chose to show her power like the sultan who, to prove his dexterity, cut off the heads of unoffending beings with his own scimitar. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... see how piggy is finally disposed of. The cart ascends the hill till it comes to a line of buildings with the canal running at the back thereof; a huge and solid block lies ready for the corpse, and at each side appear a pair of brawny arms grasping a long cleaver made scimitar-shape; smaller tables are around, and artists with sharp knives attend thereat. Piggy is brought in from the cart, and laid on the solid block; one blow of the scimitar-shaped cleaver severs his head, which is ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... head of the Egyptian army. Of a short, thick-set figure, he possesses that gigantic strength which Homer so loved in his heroes, and which inspires such respect among barbarous nations. To strike off the head of a bull with a blow of his scimitar—to execute, like Peter the Great, his victims with his own hand—to fall, dead drunk, amid the broken wrecks of champagne bottles, are three diversions of his. But latterly his manners, from his intercourse with Europeans, have been somewhat polished, and in deference to them, ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... restrain the Spaniards, stationed beneath the gallows on which the servants had been hanged. The heads of the burghers almost touched the feet of these martyrs. Thirty feet from this group was a block, and on it glittered a scimitar. An executioner was present in case Juanito refused his ...
— El Verdugo • Honore de Balzac
... fell, a fiery scimitar out of the darkness, and twice again it careened at the vitals of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... prime, so it was said, she had done her part to win for that monarch his appellation of le Bien-aime. Of her past charms of feature, little remained save a remarkably prominent slender nose, curved like a Turkish scimitar, now the principal ornament of a countenance that put you in mind of an old white glove. Add a few powdered curls, high-heeled pantoufles, a cap with upstanding loops of lace, black mittens, and a decided taste for ombre. But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that she ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... tower; hadst thou been desired, enemy of human kind! to eat a dozen of toads, two dozen of lizards, and three dozen of snakes; hadst thou been requested to kill thy wife and children with some bloody and sharp scimitar,—no wonder if thou hadst betrayed some squeamishness; but to hesitate about three thousand three hundred lashes, which there is not a wretched school-boy but receives every month, it amazes, stupefies, and affrights the tender ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... courses of the storms that circle round the bald crest of old Mount Davidson; cleaves the black curtain of the night with scimitar of flame; rouses the lightnings from their couch of clouds and wakes ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... the Moslem conquest. It has been noticed that there are resemblances between the story of Shahryar and that of Ahasuerus as recorded in Esther. In both narratives the King is offended with his Queen and chooses a new wife daily. Shahryar has recourse to the scimitar, Ahasuerus consigns wife after wife to the seclusion of his harem. Shahryar finds a model consort in Shahrazad, Ahasuerus in Esther. Each queen saves a multitude from death, each king lies awake half the night listening to stories. [144] While many of the stories in The Arabian Nights are ancient, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... with periwig and cap; not given to church-going, but fond of ale, horse-racing and cuss words; husband of a multiparous wife; owner of a log cabin home or at best a frame cottage which he guarded with gun, pistol and scimitar; his road a bridle path and his means of conveyance a horse or boat ... reading ... by candle light, without spectacles; writing with a goose quill pen; sitting on a rough stool or bench; eating at a crude ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes |
