"Ransom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Meridor, who, although he could have saved himself, came voluntarily and gave up his sword at the battle of Pavia, when he heard that the king was a prisoner, and begged to accompany Francis to Madrid, partook his captivity, and only quitted him to come to France and negotiate his ransom." ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... of burning flame, and boiling waters beyond. The young knight Tristam discovered the white headland beyond Cape Bojador, named it Cape Blanco, and took home some Moors of high rank to the Prince. A large sum was offered for their ransom, so Gonsalves conveyed them back to Cape Blanco and coasted along to the south, discovering the island of Arguin of the Cape Verde group and reaching the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, reached by Hanno ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... command that from now and henceforth no Indian may be enslaved because he has fought, nor for any other reason, whether because of rebellion, or for purposes of ransom, nor in any other way, and we desire that they shall be treated as our vassals of the Crown of Castile, for ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... FATHER.—This comes with my duty to inform you, that it has pleased God to redeem that captivitie of my poor sister, in respect the Queen's blessed Majesty, for whom we are ever bound to pray, hath redeemed her soul from the slayer, granting the ransom of her, whilk is ane pardon or reprieve. And I spoke with the Queen face to face, and yet live; for she is not muckle differing from other grand leddies, saving that she has a stately presence, and een like a blue huntin' hawk's, whilk ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... Slaves. Cruel Treatment of Adams. Murder of Dolbie. Characteristics of European Slaves. Ransom of Adams. Return of Adams to England. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... after sending several messengers and agents in vain, the proud and indolent Earl of Howth came himself, with a large ransom, to buy back his heir. Grace O'Malley refused the money with scorn, but offered to restore the child to him, if he would solemnly promise that the gates of Howth Castle should always be thrown wide open when the family were ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... him; I will send his ransom; And being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me. 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, But to support ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... much esteemed by all who know her. She kindly sends us a little letter now and then, again returning her glowing thanks to all who assisted in procuring her freedom. Her mother, Dinah Williams (also a slave a few years since, and redeemed in part by the surplus of 'the Weims Ransom Fund'), has married an estimable Baptist minister within the last year, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... be the guilt, Who fetter the freeman To ransom the slave. Up, then, and undismayed, Sheathe not the battle-blade? Till the last foe is ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... near the day of his marriage, had been made prisoner at a battle between the Lacedaemon and the Helots, when going to deliver a friend of his taken prisoner by the Helots; and every hour he was to look for nothing but some cruel death, though he had offered great ransom for his life, which death, hitherunto, had only been delayed by the captain of the Helots, who seemed to have a heart of more manly pity than ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of the far of the ale-horn Looking out of a form so bewitching, Would a bridegroom count money to buy it He must bring for it ransom three hundred. The curls that she combs of a morning, White-clothed in fair linen and spotless, They enhance the bright hoard of her value,— Five hundred ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... all, perhaps, to find, in that carved handle of a fan, the last of those curiosities of the first day which had now all been given to us by their possessors—their chief merchandise, for which they had sought to ransom us as long as we were strangers, which they pressed on us for nothing as soon as we were friends. The last visit was not long protracted. One after another they shook hands and got down into their canoe; when Hoka turned his back immediately upon the ship, so that we saw ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... entertained for a month or more And dismissed with a blessing; but only to return to his own country, collect a band of men and cross to Talland Cove, where on a Christmas Eve he surprised his late host at supper, bound him, haled him down to the shore, carried him off to Brittany, and there held him at ransom. The ransom was paid, and our Cornish miller, returning, built himself a secret cupboard behind the chimney for a hiding-place against another such mishap. That hiding-place yet existed, and formed (as the Major well knew) a ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her imperturbable pony). But her jewels clothed her. Their authentic fire seemed to blaze out of herself—to be fed by her. And each one of them, no doubt, had its romance—its scandal. That rope of pearls in itself was a king's ransom. People nudged each other. It was part of the show that she ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... because unresisted and irresistible authority. The persons who have thus squandered away the precious treasure of their crimes, the persons who have made this prodigal and wild waste of public evils, (the last stake reserved for the ultimate ransom of the state,) have met in their progress with little, or rather with no opposition at all. Their whole march was more like a triumphal procession than the progress of a war. Their pioneers have gone ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... devil! My brother fight upon the adverse party! He wounds the CARDINAL, and, in the scuffle, gives BOSOLA his death-wound. There flies your ransom. ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... they had left behind no clue to their participation. Moreover he was seriously handicapped by ignorance of any motive. Why should they desire to gain possession of the girl? It could not be money, or the hope of ransom. What then? Was it some accident which had involved her in the toils prepared for another? If so, were those unexpected orders for Major McDonald a part of the conspiracy, or had their receipt complicated the affair? ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the Indian-traders—to whose generosity so many of the captives, taken by the natives in those early times, were indebted for their ransom. But—notwithstanding occasional acts of charity—their unscrupulous rapacity, and, particularly, their introduction of spirituous liquors among the savages, furnish good reason to doubt, whether, on the whole, they did anything to advance the civilization ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... shoalness of the water preventing a landing in larger vessels. Were captured by A-ti, a laughing Chinese nymph, with a splendid set of the whitest teeth, and landed safely on the Praya, after purchasing our ransom with a Spanish coin, in value ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... everywhere. There was so little safety in the Midi from Marseilles to Toulon and Toulouse that one could not travel without an escort. In the Var, the Bouches-du-Rhone, Vaucluse, from Digne and Draguignan, to Avignon and Aix, one had to pay ransom. A placard placed along the roads informed the traveller that unless he paid a hundred francs in advance, he risked being killed. The receipt given to the driver served as a passport. Theft by violence was so much the custom that certain villages in ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Dionysos, in the guise of a fair youth with dark locks and purple mantle, appears by the seashore, when he is espied by Tyrrhenian pirates, who seize him and hale him on board their ship, hoping to obtain a rich ransom. But when they proceed to bind him the fetters fall from his limbs, whereupon the pilot, recognizing his divinity, vainly endeavors to dissuade his comrades from their purpose. Soon the ship flows with wine; then a vine with hanging clusters stretches along the ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... him; He will refuse you nothing, though the price Be as a prince's ransom. And your profit Shall not ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... reach with his hand. Then messages in knotted cords were carried through all the country which remained faithful to Atahualpa, and vessels, bowls, ornaments, and ingots of gold poured in from temples and palaces. In a short time the room was filled and the ransom paid, but the Inca king was still kept a prisoner. He reminded Pizarro of his promised word. The unscrupulous adventurer laughed in his black beard. Instead of keeping his promise, he accused Atahualpa of conspiracy, condemned him to death, and ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... expelled. Gregory provided for them, either in naming them visitors of his own, or in calling in other bishops to their support. He rebuilt many churches which had been destroyed. He carefully maintained the property of churches: he would not allow it to be alienated, except to ransom captives or convert heathens. The Roman Church had then large estates in Africa, Gaul, Sicily, Corsica, Dalmatia, and especially in the various provinces of Italy. These were called the Patrimony of Peter. They consisted in lands, villages, and ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... it is not likely that Harrison is ace high in this pack. What I'm afraid of is that the old general will soak us for a ransom. He's nothing but an ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the desert After tarrying there so long, Milk and honey, wine and welcome Wait you 'mong the ransom'd throng; Wear your arms, advance to warfare, Onward go, and bravely fight, Fair the land, and there shall lead you Cloud by day ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... did not, however, agree with this, but thought the better plan would be to retain the Indian lad as a hostage, and demand of his tribe a great quantity of provisions as his ransom. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... in which he was then engaged, he refused to do so. Most of his men fled, fearing death, but Robin confiding in him whom he worshipped, with the few that remained, set upon his enemies, and soon vanquished them, enriching himself with the spoils and ransom." Robin held masses in greater veneration ever after, stating, that Providence deserved still more from him, having delivered him thus miraculously. At length, the infirmities of age increasing, and having ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... the Ransom bills I was checking off? Mr. Parker said they were the most important of ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... but in ideals, are to be found the seed of immortality. Not through material acquisition but in generous diffusion of ideas and ideals can the true empire of humanity be established. Thus to Asoka to whom belonged this vast empire, bounded by the inviolate seas, after he had tried to ransom the world by giving away to the utmost, there came a time when he had nothing more to give, except one half of an Amlaki fruit. This was his last possession and anguished cry was that since he had nothing more to give, let the ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... appease Buddha by doing homage to him until the tooth was found, and the tooth has not been found up to the present day! That means that nothing on earth could change their attitude toward him, that not one of the Buddhist sect would harm a solitary hair of his head for a king's ransom; so you may eliminate the Cingalese from the case entirely so far as the attempts upon the child's life are concerned. Whoever is making the attempts is doing so without their knowledge and for a ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in the town was Robert Keyes. It is well known that our ancestors had frequent trouble with the Indians, and that white people were stolen, to be either put to death or returned to their friends for a ransom. Lancaster had been burned seventy-five years before, and Mrs. Rowlandson, the minister's wife, was carried into captivity. She was taken to New Hampshire, and after wandering with her captors thirty days or more, she was returned to the foot of Mount Wachusett; ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... sit down to meat! But I should fail, and if I failed all were lost. Moreover," he continued solemnly, "I am certified that this task has been set for you. It was not for nothing, Madame, nor to save one poor household that you were joined to this man; but to ransom all these lives and this great city. To be the Judith of our faith, the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... consciousness of sin, which God is seeking to force home on them! No doubt the people were very willing to have a finger in the affair; but so was he. And if the cattle was their share, Agag, who could be held to ransom, was his; and the arrangement suited all round. As to the purpose of sacrificing at Gilgal, perhaps that was true; but if it were, no doubt the same process of selection, which had destroyed the worthless and kept the best, would have been repeated; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... believe he is prepared for every extremity. A man of his sort has never contemplated remaining indefinitely at the mercy of ignorance and corruption. It was like being a prisoner in a cavern of banditti with the price of your ransom in your pocket, and buying your life from day to day. Your mere safety, not your liberty, mind, doctor. I know what I am talking about. The image at which you shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct, especially if you conceive such ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... resisted by some of the converted nobles, and particularly by the young prince of Omura, whose obstinacy was punished in a very summary way,—the Ziogoon seizing upon the port of Nagasaki, and transferring it to his own immediate government. On paying a heavy ransom, however, the prince was permitted to resume authority in Nagasaki, and Taiko-sama, busily occupied with more important affairs of state, neglected to enforce his decree of expulsion, and left the Christians undisturbed for some years, until a new evidence of affront ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... account of the good faith of the one, we hold him in no unfriendly remembrance; [Footnote: Pyrrhus, after the only victory that he obtained over the Romans, treated his prisoners with signal humanity, and restored them without ransom. See De Officiis, i. 12] the other because of his cruelty our people must always hate. [Footnote: It may be doubted wheter Hannibal deserved the reproach here implied. The Roman historians ascribe to him acts of cruelty no worse than their own generals ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... she saw my face to-night—to-day—it sent her wild, but she did not remember." He rubbed his chin in ecstasy and drummed his knee. "Ha! I cannot have the father—so I'll have the goodly child, and great will be the ransom. Great will be the ransom, my Frenchman!" And once more he tapped ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and goods destroyed and to hold fast to allies who do not protect you—and a Roman garrison at Casilinum all the time. They say this African is kind to his friends, and then, too, he sent home my son without ransom when the young man was prisoner in the north—some battle by some lake that I forget ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... in harmony with the above-given explanation. The ingratitude of King Charles towards the heroine who had won him his crown is the subject of common historical remark. M. Wallon insists upon the circumstance that, after her capture at Compiegne, no attempts were made by the French Court to ransom her or to liberate her by a bold coup de main. And when, at Rouen, she appealed in the name of the Church to the Pope to grant her a fair trial, not a single letter was written by the Archbishop of Rheims, High Chancellor of France, to his suffragan, the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Such were the cruelties which daily excited the terror and disgust of a people among whom, till lately, the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched battle was the loss of his horse and the expense of his ransom. The swinish intemperance of Switzerland, the wolfish avarice of Spain, the gross licentiousness of the French, indulged in violation of hospitality, of decency, of love itself, the wanton inhumanity which was common to all the invaders, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... they appear! With the Cloud of the Crowd hanging dark at their rear— Serried, and steadied, and orderlie, Like the course—like the force—of a marching sea! Open your gates, and out with your gold, For the blood must be spilt, or the ransom be told! Woe, Burghers, woe! Behold them led By the stoutest arm and the wisest head, With the snow-white cross on the cloth of red;— With the eagle eye, and the lion port, His barb for a throne, and his camp for a court: Sovereign and scourge of the land is he— The ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the offence given by the offender against it, then it is clear that if the man be spared and saved, it is not the law that doth give the man this advantage, but it is the mere mercy of the king, either because he hath a ransom or satisfaction some other way, or being provoked thereto out of his own love to the person whom he saveth. Now, thou also having transgressed and broken the Law of God, if the law be not executed upon thee, it is not because the law is merciful, or can pass by the least offence done by thee, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... EXPEDITION.—Intelligence has been received from the Saharan African Expedition up to the 29th of August last. The expedition had literally fought its way up to Selonfeet in Aheer, near to the territory of the Kaillouee Prince, En-Nour, to whom it is recommended. Mr. Richardson had been obliged to ransom his life and those of his fellow-travellers twice. The whole population of the northern districts of Aheer had been raised against the expedition, joined by all the bandits and robbers who infest that region of the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... parties of fifties; and any company of travellers happening then to be passing by will be good-naturedly attacked with both scythes and shouts, pulled from their horses, and carried off in triumph. For their ransom they will have to give at least a sheep to help out the evening's supper, besides honey enough to make mead for the whole company. And with such a prospect of feasting before them the laborers will return with increased zest to their work, swinging gaily their short scythes worn well-nigh to ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... echo. No, but I did not think: 'twas but my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever dreaming; God help at last the awakening! But well met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just in time! Nay, I would not have missed him for a ransom. So—so—this leg, that leg; up now—hands over down we go! Lackaday, I am old bones for such freaks. Once!... 'Memento mori!' say I, and smell the shower the sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'd be. You're looking peaked. That ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... hardships. The prisoners were treated with the utmost kindness, and in consideration of their sufferings, and the help they had afforded in saving many lives, a cartel was fitted out by order of the French Government to send them home, without ransom or exchange. They arrived at Plymouth on the 7th ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... which even the conquerors had yet formed concerning the wealth of Peru. The Inca, who was taken prisoner, quickly discovered that the ruling passion of the Spaniards was the desire of gold; he offered therefore to recover his liberty by a splendid ransom. ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... seraphs sing, In cloudless day; There, where the higher praise The ransom'd pay. Soft strains of the happy land, Chanted by the heavenly band, Who can fully understand ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... set out thither in cold and wind and rain. For the most part they fared on foot, staff in hand. Whenever they could, these pilgrims travelled in companies, to the end they might not be robbed and held to ransom by the armed bands that infested the country parts, and by the barons who exacted toll on the confines of their lands. Inasmuch as the mountain districts were especially dangerous, they tarried in the neighbouring towns, Clermont, ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... their example. It was a common practice in Germany, among the nobles and petty sovereigns, to invite an alchymist to take up his residence among them, that they might confine him in a dungeon till he made gold enough to pay millions for his ransom. Many poor wretches suffered perpetual imprisonment in consequence. A similar fate appears to have been intended by Edward II. for Raymond Lulli, who, upon the pretence that he was thereby honoured, was accommodated with apartments in the Tower of London. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... east of you, one mile and one hundred yards, stands a house. It is a farmhouse. Its owner is no friend of the Provincials, and has a captive whom he holds for ransom." ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... enters this door—the very instant!" She takes a portfolio from the table near her, without rising, and writes: "'Received from Miss Ethel Reed one hundred and twenty-five dollars, in full, for twenty-five lessons in oil-painting.' There—when Mr. Oliver Ransom has signed this little document he may begin to talk; not before!" She leans back in her chair with an ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... order to save a place from being plundered by a hostile force. (See RANSOM.) Also, a sum raised among merchants, where goods have been thrown overboard in stress of weather, towards the loss ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... repeated references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. "Ten fat goats, ten fat goats," the old Negro would croon over and over again. By this little Tibo guessed that the price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor little boy? Mbonga would never let her have them, and Tibo knew that his father never had owned more than three goats at the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cross; but th' hour Of mercy now was come: he tries to bring Me to pay a fine to 'scape his torturing, And says, Sir, can you spare me? I said, Willingly. Nay, Sir, can you spare me a crown? Thankfully I Gave it as ransom. But as fiddlers still, Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will Thrust one more jigg upon you; so did he With his long complimented thanks vex me. But he is gone, thanks to his needy want, And the prerogative of my crown. Scant ...
— English Satires • Various
... and costly fabrics from the East; and they obtained, often, large sums of money by seizing men of distinction and wealth, who were continually passing to and fro between Italy and Greece, and holding them for a ransom. They were particularly pleased to get possession in this way of Roman generals and officers of state, who were going out to take the command of armies, or who were returning from their provinces with the wealth which they had ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... be held in remembrance of the victory of our Saxon forefathers over the Danes in the time of Ethelred. The custom was that on Hock Monday the men should go out into the streets and roads with cords, and stop and bind all the women they met, releasing them on payment of a small ransom. On the following day the women bound the men, and the proceeds were devoted to charitable purposes. It is to be noted that the women always extracted the most money, and in the old churchwardens' accounts we find frequent records of this strange method of collecting subscriptions—e.g., ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... intrusted something like the same amount to Felix. In the treasure chamber lay a mass of wealth now belonging to Aurelia, and the mere fact of this being under lock and key by no means secured it against the commander's greed. Marcian came forward, and hearing the talk of ransom, endeavoured to awe the Hun into moderation, but with less success than he had had at Cumae. So he led Basil aside, told him of the messenger sent to Cumae, as well as of the inventions by which Chorsoman had been beguiled, and counselled mere inaction until news came. Marcian then inquired ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson Last of the Chiefs, Joseph A. Altsheler The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper Last of the Plainsmen, Zane Grey Lone Bull's Mistake, J. W. Shultz Ranche on the Oxhide, Henry Inman The Ransom of Red Chief and O. Henry Other Stories for Boys, Edited by F. K. Mathiews Scouting With Daniel Boone, Everett T. Tomlinson Scouting With Kit Carson, Everett T. Tomlinson Through College on Nothing a Year, Christian Gauss Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 20,000 ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... opportunities for making money. It is very possible that I have screwed the vise a little hard sometimes. But the matter must not be judged with the eyes of a European. The enormous profits that the Levantines make are a well-known and recognized thing over yonder; they are the ransom of the savages whom we introduce to western comforts. This wretched Hemerlingue, who is suggesting all this persecution of me to the bey, has done very much worse things. But what's the use of arguing? I am in the wolf's jaws. Pending my appearance to justify myself before his courts—I ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... desert. You see? Ah! Rose of Sharon, I am not yet beat; your Fakredeen is not the baffled boy that, a few minutes ago, you looked as if you thought him. I defy Ibrahim, or the King of France, or Palmerston himself, to make a combination superior to this. What a ransom! The English lord will pay Scheriff Effendi for his five thousand muskets, and for their conveyance ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... the Egyptian tombs the dead were laid wrapped in picture cloths, some of which are now in the South Kensington Museum, to the time of the great Turk Bajazet who, having captured some Christian knights, would accept nothing for their ransom but the 'storied tapestries of France' and gerfalcons. As regards the use of tapestry in modern days, he pointed out that we were richer than the middle ages, and so should be better able to afford this form of lovely wall-covering, which for artistic tone is absolutely ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... become great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all. Even as the Son of man also came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... at liberty, and he sware that he would be the king's man, and hold all his lands henceforward from him, and would depart from the kingdom with all his folk. Thus must the king, being captive, stand at King Arthur's pleasure to pay him such ransom as he might think good. Of him will ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... the Realm, except he have Land or Rent to the Value of Twenty Shillings by the Year at the least, but they shall be put to other labours as their Estates doth require, upon Pain of one Year's Imprisonment, and to make Fine and Ransom at the King's Will. And if any Covenant be made of any such Infant, of what Estate that he be, to the contrary, it shall be holden for none. Provided Always, that every Man and Woman, of what Estate or Condition that he be, shall be free to set their Son or Daughter to ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... that he had learned a secret of such immense importance, or his silence would have been insured by the headsman. As it was, he was thrown into prison for illegal trading, where he was held for heavy ransom. But he managed to get word to Amsterdam of the priceless information which had come into his possession, whereupon the merchants of that city promptly formed a syndicate, subscribed the money for his ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... head. "They hadn't arrived when I left this morning. I don't know whether they are here now or not. I'm to have one of them. Virginia Gaines has gone to Livingstone Hall. She has a friend there. Two of the new girls will have her room. Florence Ransom will have ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and sportsmen, for I cannot call to mind any instance of a sportsman being robbed. It is true that sometimes a fat financier, or rich rentier, who may have called himself a sportsman, has been carried off and ransom demanded for him, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... captives was Mary Rowlandson, the minister's wife, who afterward wrote the story of her sad experiences. The treatment of the prisoners varied with the caprice or the cupidity of the captors. Those for whom a substantial ransom might be expected fared comparatively well; to others death came as a welcome relief. One poor woman with a child in her arms was too weak to endure the arduous tramp over the icy hillsides, and begged to be left behind, till presently the savages lost their patience. ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... predecessors in favor of whatsoever kings, princes, infantes, or whatsoever other persons, orders or knighthoods, who for any reason whatever may now be there, even for motives of charity or the faith, or the ransom of captives. Nor shall it matter how urgent these reasons may be, even though, based on repealing clauses, they may appear of the most positive, mandatory, and unusual character; nor even should there be contained therein ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... Boston. But as he passed through the Notch of the mountains a war-party of Indians captured our unlucky merchant and carried him to Montreal, there holding him in bondage till by the payment of a heavy ransom he had woefully subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, his affairs had become so disordered that for the rest of his life, instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... chain! Ended the poet's pain! Freed by a ransom (his relatives' dole), Humbled by grief and shame, Injured in name and fame, Drags he his crippled frame Back through Tyrol. Then, in a plaintive song Chanting his grievous wrong, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Last of his gifted ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... the case had presented itself to Medland also, reinforcing the considerations which weighed against giving Benham the appointment he sought. The Premier hated yielding, and he hated jobs: Benham asked him to acknowledge himself beaten, and, as ransom, to perpetrate a peculiarly dirty job. At most times of his life he would not even have looked at such a proposal, but his new-won position, with its possibilities and its risks, made him timid: he was fearful as a child of anything that would jeopardise what he had so hardly and narrowly achieved; ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... cigarette. Say, you think yourself some josher, don't you, telling me you were a kidnapper! You strung me like an onion. So you're really Jimmy Crocker after all? Where was the sense in pulling all that stuff about taking me away and divvying up the ransom? ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... If so, consider of what I say:—To thee it is opened no more for ever (Job 36:14). If thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him. Yea, "because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke; then a great ransom cannot deliver thee" (v 18). Will he esteem thy riches? No; not gold, nor all the forces of strength. "He hath prepared his throne for judgment" (Psa 9:7). For "he will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... choose to return to his cloister; when suddenly he fled, and, being young and light-footed, robbed me, not only of such caduacs and casualties as an experienced cavalier might well take from his prisoner for ransom, but also, as now it appears, of my good name. For I doubt not that this musketeer priest, Monsieur Aramis, or l'Abbe d'Herblay (for he hath as many names as I have seen campaigns), was the loon that beguiled with a lying tale the newsman of the "Gallo Belgicus." And ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... Andros, and other islands, putting them under contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats; from a pen of guinea-fowl to a king's ransom, nothing escaped the maw of this most rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands yielded up some small spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant folk as the wretched islanders were soon lost to the sight ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... and his numerous encounters with these Indians, had given him a knowledge which would be of great value in such an emergency. Fred recalled too, that he had heard it stated more than once that the Indians frequently took prisoners for the purpose of ransom, and that he might be restored in this manner so soon as communication could be opened between the Apaches ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... cross his weapon with Du Guesclin, and sought every occasion to pick a quarrel with him. Having so good a will for it, of course he found a way. A relative of his had been taken prisoner by the Constable, in whose hands he remained till he was able to pay his ransom. Troussel resolved to make a quarrel out of this, and despatched a messenger to Du Guesclin, demanding the release of his prisoner, and offering a bond, at a distant date, for the payment of the ransom. Du Guesclin, who had received intimation of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... which we write, the embassy had already exhausted its powers of intercession, apparently without moving the leader of the Goths from his first pitiless resolution of fixing the ransom of Rome at the price of every possession of value which the city contained. There was a momentary silence now in the great tent. At one extremity of it, congregated in a close and irregular group, stood the wearied and broken-spirited members of the Senate, supported by such ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... cheerfully, "as it happens to be quite true; and there can be no real question as to the true interest of Poland, and especially of the trading classes in the great towns, from whom heavy contributions towards the expenses of war are always exacted by their own rulers, and who have to pay a ruinous ransom in case of their city being captured by the enemy. The traders of Warsaw will need no reminder of such well-known facts, and will be only too glad to be assured that, unless as a last resource, our king ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... children's lives were in imminent danger. That was on the first of September, and when the Hardwicke family, black and white, were safely within the little fortress, there remained outside only two families, namely, those of Abner James and Ransom Kimball, who determined to remain one more night at Kimball's house, two miles from Sinquefield. That very night the Indians, under Francis the prophet, burned the house, killing twelve of the inmates. Five others escaped, and one of them, Isham Kimball, who ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... hearty sorrow Be a sufficient ransom for offence, I tender it here; I do as truly suffer ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... are to regard the mission and message to Jesus of these two men in our text. We know that clear before Him, all His life long, there stood the certainty of the Cross. We know that He came, not merely to teach, to minister, to bless, to guide, but that He came to give His life a ransom for many. But we know, too, that from about this point of time in His life the Cross stood more distinctly, if that may be, before Him; or at all events, that it pressed more upon His vision and upon His spirit. And doubtless after that time when He spoke to the disciples so plainly and clearly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it was not to be expected that the poor clerk and agent should have command of sufficient funds to pay even the more moderate ransom which he was now prepared to accept, he had formed all his plans for eventually securing it. Something of course would have to be trusted to the pledged word of the man with whom he treated, but though he ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... years to return, touching now and then the hilt of his sword, as one would pat the neck of his war-horse, which was pawing for him to mount; and well did that sword deserve his trust, for though it was his all, a king's ransom would not have purchased it. It had been the sword of his greatest ancestor, and possessed the charm of giving to the arm of its wearer the strength of ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... of them? He could not go gallivanting about the country with a half million dollars' worth of precious stones in his possession. A king's ransom strapped on his back! He would not be able to sleep a wink. Indeed, he could see himself wasting away to a mere shadow through worry and dread. Precious stones? They would develop into millstones, he thought, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even The natural fool of fortune! Use me well; You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon, I am cut ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Stackelberg, in going from Athens to Thessalonica in an armed vessel, was taken by some Albanian pirates, who immediately sent the captain of the vessel to the former place, demanding 60,000 piastres for the baron's ransom, and threatening that if it was not paid, they would tear his body to pieces. They obliged him, at the same time, to write to Baron Haller and another friend, to acquaint them with the demand. The time fixed by the pirates had elapsed, and Baron Stackelberg, who had become extremely ill, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... blame nobody if they speak to the best of their experience. I've heard tell of barbers, woman, about London, that rode up this street, and down that other street, in coaches and four, jumping out to every one that hallooed to them, sharping razors both on stone and strap, at the ransom of a penny the pair; and shaving off men's beards, whiskers and all, stoop and roop, for a three-ha'pence. Speak of barbers! it's all ye ken about it. Commend me to a safe employment, and a profitable. They may give others ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the king was kindled his anger: Then went sickness abroad, and the people died of the sickness: For that of Atreus' son had his priest been lightly entreated, Chryses, Apollo's priest. For he came to the ships of Achaia, Bearing a daughter's ransom, a sum not easy to number: And in his hand was the emblem of Him, far-darting Apollo, High on a sceptre of gold: and he made his prayer to the Grecians; Chiefly to Atreus' sons, twin chieftains, ordering ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... believers, and gazing to satiety upon the weals which the lash kept raw on the bare back of the man in front. But the risk added a zest to the Corsair's life, and the captive could often look forward to the hope of recapture, or sometimes of ransom by his friends. The career of the pirate, with all its chances, was a prosperous one. The adventurers grew rich, and their strong places on the Barbary coast became populous and well garrisoned; and, by the time the Spaniards began ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... of civilized security as though it were a spider's web," was the serious reply. "But I have interrupted my own story. I began to think that I would be taken to some awful den in the East End, and held there till some huge sum of money was paid by way of ransom, when the car suddenly quitted the main road and bumped over a rough surface. I knew I was near Croydon— the last place I would have suspected as a brigands' stronghold. Then we halted, and that wretched man lifted me out, carried me into a back room of an old-fashioned house, put me in a ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... prisoners of St. Quentin and Gravelines, having served in both campaigns. The amount to be received by individuals from this source may be estimated from the fact that Count Horn, by no means one of the most favored in the victorious armies, had received from Leonor d'Orleans, Due de Loggieville, a ransom of eighty thousand crowns. The sum due, if payment were enforced, from the prisoners assigned to Egmont, Orange, and others, must have been very large. Granvelle estimated the whole amount at two millions; adding, characteristically, "that this kind of speculation was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... from Batavia's shore; The thrifty Fleming for my beauty rare Pays a king's ransom, when that I am fair, And tall, and straight, and ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... they get to Turkey, they find that as they travel inland people become progressively less helpful, until eventually they are captured by bandits, and a ransom is demanded. How do they get out of this? And ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... to be surrendered; the Christian prisoners in their hands were to be given up unharmed; and the inhabitants undertook to pay 200,000 pieces of gold to the kings within forty days, under the condition that the fighting men now taken prisoners were to be put to death should this ransom not be paid. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... bordj of Toudja, at last," Victoria said, looking out between the curtains of her bassour. "Aren't you thankful, Saidee? You'll feel happier and freer, when Cassim's men have gone back to the Zaouia, and our ransom has been paid by the return of the little boy. That volume of your life will be closed for ever and ever, and ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the helpless, succor me in my need. Forbid that through weakness the sacrifice should be incomplete. Lead, sustain, fortify me with patience, that I may ransom the soul I ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Satan himself," said he, very low and resolute, "I will win her from him, though my own soul be the ransom." ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Vilancio—was born in the kingdom of Naples, about 1573. Before attaining his majority, he entered the Jesuit order, and came to Manila in 1602, spending the rest of his life in the Philippine missions. He was captured by the Moro pirates in 1632, who demanded a heavy ransom for him. This was raised in the following year, but he died in captivity before the money reached him. His name (apparently Vilanci) is given a Spanish form by all these writers; and he is not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... ago," said the captain, "two pirate junks in the Sunda Straits attacked a British barque, and, after a fight, captured her. Some o' the crew were killed in action, some were taken on board the junks to be held to ransom, I s'pose, and some, jumping into the sea to escape if possible by swimming, were probably drowned, for they were a considerable distance from land. It was one o' these fellows, however, who took to the water that managed to land on ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... pride, King Henry to deride, His ransom to provide To the King sending; Which he neglects the while, As from a nation vile Yet with an angry smile, Their ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... old chap!" yelled the C.O., "every fifty yards is worth a monarch's ransom to Haig. Let's see if we can't carry that wood yonder while their searchlights last"; and he pointed to the ridge beyond the captured trench. "I'd like to know who silenced that machine-gun just now. I suppose half a dozen men will claim ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... carabao-hide. The Devil was in the other box, he said. After tying the box with heavy ropes, Colassit started toward the river with it. He repeated a jingle which informed the man inside of his imminent fate. The latter replied (also in verse) that he would give a thousand pesos ransom. Colassit accepted, and so became rich. [The narrator says that this is only one of ten adventures belonging to the complete story. It is a pity that the other nine ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... King Marsil's hue; The seal he brake and to earth he threw, Read of the scroll the tenor clear. "So Karl the Emperor writes me here. Bids me remember his wrath and pain For sake of Basan and Basil slain, Whose necks I smote on Haltoia's hill; Yet, if my life I would ransom still, Mine uncle the Algalif must I send, Or love between us were else at end." Then outspake Jurfalez, Marsil's son: "This is but madness of Ganelon. For crime so deadly his life shall pay; Justice be mine on his head this day." Ganelon heard him, and waved ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... from the dominion of things? does Death so serve him—so ransom him? Why then hasten the hour? Shall not the youth abide the stroke of Time's clock—await the Inevitable on its path to ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... consequently in mixed Gothic. Of paintings I know nothing; so shall attempt to say nothing. But whether to connoisseurs, or to an ignorant admirer like myself, the Salvator Mundi, by Carlo Dolci, must seem worth a King's ransom. Lady Exeter, who was at home, had the goodness or curiosity to wish to see us. She is a beauty after my own heart; a great deal of liveliness in the face; an absence alike of form and of affected ease, and really courteous after ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... father bore him back and struck him such a blow with a mace that he turned the helmet half round on his head, so that he could no longer see through the eye holes, and Sir Lorredan threw down his sword and gave himself to ransom. But your father took him by the helmet and twisted it until he had it straight upon his head. Then, when he could see once again, he handed him his sword, and prayed him that he would rest himself and then continue, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my wife and lady kind Shall ransom me with jewels, gold and treasure." "God shield," quoth Godfrey, "that my noble mind Should praise and virtue so by profit measure, All that thou hast from Persia and from Inde Enjoy it still, therein I take no pleasure; I set no rent ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... told to the king—that the traitor is fled, and all his army with him, and that he had taken so much of victuals and goods from the city that the burgesses are impoverished and destitute and at a loss. And the king has replied just this: that never will he take ransom of the traitor, but will hang him if he can find or take him. Now all the host bestirs itself so much that they reached Windsor. At that day, however it be now, if any one wished to defend the castle, it would not have been easy to take; for the traitor enclosed ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... body beyond the cordon, lads,' said the corporal, still examining the gun, 'and put a shelter over him from the sun. Perhaps they'll send from the mountains to ransom it.' ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... think I may, for they were fewer than the Articles of my Faith, therefore I have room for you, and will believe you—Yet stay, you say you'l ransom your jewels with Ready-money when you come Home; so you may, and then ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... held the basket, which was resting on a branch. My father, however, knew what to do. He sent a servant at once to the bazaar, and in the meantime brought all of the fruit in the house and spread it on the floor of the veranda. The monkey shook his head, meaning that was not ransom enough for him. Very soon the servant returned with an enormous quantity of bananas. The baboon immediately came down, and it was remarkable how he brought down the ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... see whether I am mad or not. Did you see what the brigands did to a fellow they caught in Greece the other day for whom they wanted ransom? First, they sent his ear to his friends, then his nose, then his foot, and, last of all, his head—all by post, mark you. Well, dear Anne, that is just how I am going to pay you out. You shall have a week to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Conkling, Conover, Cooper, Davis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Howe, Ingalls, Johnston, Jones, MeCreery, Merrimon, Morrill of Maine, Norwood, Ransom, Scott, Sherman, Wadleigh, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of the Indian wars in the West, and the strategic value of various points on the frontier, possession of which in the event of war he foresaw would be worth a king's ransom. Not least were details respecting Michilimackinac, the Mackinaw already referred to. Nearly half a century before, Henry, a native of New Jersey, of English parents—his ambition fired by tales of the fabulous fortunes to be made ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... beyond the mouth of that valley in which these knights took combat as aforetold. Moreover, it was the custom of Sir Turquine to make prisoner all the knights and ladies who came that way; and all the knights and ladies who were not of King Arthur's court he set free when they had paid a sufficient ransom unto him; but the knights who were of King Arthur's court, and especially those who were of the Round Table, he held prisoner for aye within his castle. The dungeon of that castle was a very cold, dismal, ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was killed; the king was captured, and for eleven years he remained a prisoner in England. Meanwhile Robert the Steward (still the heir to the throne, for David had no children) ruled in Scotland. There is reason for believing that, in 1352, David was allowed to go to Scotland to raise a ransom, and, two years later, an arrangement was actually made for his release. But Robert the Steward and David had always been on bad terms, and, after everything had been formally settled, the Scots decided to remain loyal to their French allies. Hostilities ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... not to sleep. The child's imagination was aflame. This scarlet woman, this meteor from hell flashing before the delighted eyes of men, she, then, had bound Hubert for ever in her toils; no release for him now, no ransom to eternity. No instant's doubt of the news came to Adela; in her eyes imprimatur was the guarantee of truth. She strove to picture the face which had drawn Hubert to his doom. It must be lovely beyond compare. For the first time in her life ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Turold, the Norman Abbot, had entered upon possession: another says that Turold had in person joined Ivo Taillebois in an attempt to surprise Hereward and his men in the woods near Bourne, but had been taken prisoner and only released after paying a large ransom. When dismissed there seems to have been something in the nature of an undertaking that the Abbot would not again fight against Hereward; but as soon as he was free he organised fresh attacks, obliging all the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... 'Ransom presently the broker,—him they will not harm,' and hastened to the King that he might see her in her beauty. The King reclined on cushions in the harem with a fair slave-girl, newly from the mountains, toying with the pearls in her locks. Then thought ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Gawaine, "my anxiety is to see Mark, the king of Cornwall, and tell him to his face that I deem him a scurvy hound since he promised protection to Beatrice of Banisar as she passed through his lands and yet broke his promise and so holds her for ransom." ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... Ernesto. "Ah! That shows how much you know about it! Only last week the Count Rozallo was taken prisoner on the road to Catania, and carried off into the mountains. He's there yet, till he pays a ransom of 25,000 lire." ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... said. 'What will you have to take me back to Pontefract? Name your price, man—I am rich and can pay a royal ransom—and you shall enter the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... intended victim, and vowed that the death blow should strike her first. The savage chief moved by his daughter's devotion, spared the prisoner's life.[303] Smith was soon afterward escorted in safety to Jamestown, and given up on a small ransom being ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... took upon Himself the cross of sorrow and suffering, not alone that He might satisfy for our transgressions and be our ransom from bondage, but also that He might be unto us an example and a leader. And knowing that our unfaithfulness had incurred severest maladies from which none could escape, He bore our infirmities and carried our sorrows for ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... cherubim that looked down upon her from the topmast shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh, baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee?" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on the bas-relief—a dying trumpeter. ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Spaniards come with any intention whatever of capturing the people, but rather to give liberty to those who were captives. There was his wife, and he could ascertain from her what treatment had been shown her, and he could take her away at once, together with what he had brought to ransom her. As soon as that barbarian heard this, he wept for joy, and threw himself at the governor's feet, which he tried to kiss. He said that the Castilians were in truth good men, and that the reports that the Indians had had hitherto were malicious. The people ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... Bogharib left a debt of twenty-eight slaves and eight bars of copper, each seventy pounds, and did not dare to fire a shot because they saw they had met their match: here his headmen are said to have bound the headmen of villages till a ransom was paid in tusks! Had they only gone three days further to the Babisa, to whom Moene-mokaia's men went, they would have got fine ivory at two rings a tusk, while they had paid from ten to eighteen. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... failures Caesar determined to take no active part in politics for a time, and retraced his steps to the East in order to study rhetoric under Molon, at Rhodes. On the journey thither he was caught by pirates, whom he treated with consummate nonchalance while awaiting his ransom, threatening to return and crucify them; when released he lost no time in carrying out his threat. Whilst he was studying at Rhodes the third Mithradatic War broke out, and Caesar at once raised a corps of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... blood had made it easy for them to mingle with the Irish population, to marry and settle down among them. But the followers of John were Norman and French knights, accustomed to fight in full armour upon the plains of France; and to add to a rich pay the richer profits of plunder and of ransom. The seaport towns and the castles fell into the hands of new masters, untrained to the work required of them. "Wordy chatterers, swearers of enormous oaths, despisers of others," as they seemed to the race of Nesta's descendants, the new rulers of the country proved mere plunderers, who ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... and gladly. If this bitter strife May so by one brief hour be sooner stayed, Then is your offering, spent to ransom life, A thousand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... something to tell!" replied Chettle. "Right enough, he'd a good deal to tell. This—he told me at last, as if every word he let out was worth a ransom, that he was a parcels office clerk in the North Eastern Railway Station at Hull, and that since the 13th of May until the day before yesterday he'd been away in the North of Scotland on his holidays—been home to his people, in fact—he is a Scotsman, which, of course, accounts for ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... were bad—I had made a fortune on the London Stock Exchange, and my books were scarcely as satisfactory as our bandit auditors could have desired them to be. However they took a kindly view of the case, and allowed me to pass through. But pardon me, I see your ransom has arrived. I am afraid I must say good bye. A ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... and act otherwise than selfishly, had a very different motive than humanity for this apparent generosity: having gained possession of the person of Margaret, he immediately rendered her his own prisoner, and caused her father to be informed that if he wished to ransom her, he must give up all his hereditary rights to the duchies of Anjou and Lorrain. So tenderly did Rene love his daughter, that he made the sacrifice without hesitation. The history of this princess, as collected from the French ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... gods were hurling all kinds of missiles at Balder, to show that nothing could hurt him. Loki asked the blind Hoeder to throw the plant at Balder. Hoeder did so, and Balder fell dead. The gods tried to recover him from Hel, the gloomy underworld, but Hel demanded as his ransom a tear from every living creature. Gods, men, and even things inanimate wept for Balder, except one cruel giantess—Loki in disguise— who would not give a single tear. She said, "Neither living nor dead was Balder ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews—the greatest ship ever seen in those days—when she drove ashore one stormy night off Bamborough. And of her passengers, one, the Abbot of St. Colomb, was long held to ransom by James Carr, a deed the consequences of which, in those days of an all-powerful Church, might be dreadful to contemplate. Pitscottie says the "Bishop's Barge" cost her owner something like L10,000 sterling. Perhaps the harvest reaped by Bamborough when she ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... at strife About a ransom to preserve my life? Though to save yours I did my interest give, Think not, when you were his, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... yourself, for the present, the Disinherited Knight, of the horse and armour used by the said Brian de Bois-Guilbert in this day's Passage of Arms, leaving it with your nobleness to retain or to ransom the same, according to your pleasure; for such is the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... word of what they say about your friends," said Cameron to Dick in a low tone while the Indians were thus engaged. "Depend upon it they hope to hide them till they can send to the settlements and get a ransom, or till they get an opportunity of torturing them to death before their women and children when they get back to their own village. But we'll baulk them, my ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... silver, besides pearls and jewels of all kinds and other things of price, beyond the attainment of the kings of the earth. So they did that and when they had laid all the treasure in my presence, I said to them, 'Can ye ransom me with all this treasure or buy me one day of life therewith?' But they could not! So they resigned themselves to fore-ordained Fate and fortune and I submitted to the judgment of Allah, enduring patiently that which he decreed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... of the 5th of May, by Baron Waltersdorff. Since that I have been honored with yours of April the 13th, and May the 16th and 18th. The present covers letters to Mr. Lambe and Mr. Randall, informing them that the demands of Algiers for the ransom of our prisoners and also for peace, are so infinitely beyond our instructions, that we must refer the matter back to Congress, and therefore praying them to come on immediately. I will beg the favor of you to forward these letters. The whole of this business, therefore, is suspended till we receive ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of Cosetta, or, I might say, under his threats, Mr. Carmody has sent appeals in every direction he could think of for the funds to pay the hundred thousand dollar ransom demanded for the party. These requests have been carried on through agents of Cosetta, but none of the appeals have borne fruit. Wearied, Cosetta has announced that on a certain morning, if the ransom has not arrived, Carmody and all the members ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... fourteenth century, under the Avignon popes, and during the Great Schism; when the Church with two heads seems no longer a church; when the king and all his nobles, being in shameful captivity to the English, are extorting the means of ransom from their oppressed and outraged people. Then do the Sabbaths take the grand and horrible form of the Black Mass, of a ritual upside down, in which Jesus is defied and bidden to thunder on the people ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... If Ransom [Dr. Ransom of Nottingham.] had not overworked himself, I should probably not be writing ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... most lovely Egypt," he said; "are the sands of Nile compact of gold, that thou canst, night by night, thus squander the ransom of a King upon a single feast? ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... last words Moses seized by a great fear, such as had taken possession of him only on two other occasions. Once, when God said to him, "Let each give a ransom for his soul," when, much alarmed, he said: "If a man were to give all that he hath for his soul, it would not suffice." God quieted him with the words, "I do not ask what is due Me, but only what they can fulfil, half ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... say less and less. For, if the Law make not a timely provision, let the Law, as reason is, bear the censure of those consequences which her own default now more evidently produces. And, if men want manliness to expostulate the right of their due ransom, and to second their own occasions, they may sit hereafter and bemoan themselves to have neglected, through faintness, the only remedy of their sufferings, which a seasonable and well-grounded speaking might have purchased them. And perhaps in time to come others ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... footsteps. As I stole Along the alcoves where the maidens slept, A lady stood before me. She outstretched Her white and naked arms, and round my neck Entwined them. She was the captive, Veera, Once held for ransom from some Bedouin tribe; But when the coin was brought she would not go; At this the king was pleased, for thus she made Perpetual peace between him and her kin. No maid in Mesched up and down, was found To rival her for beauty. All her words Were apt and good, and all her ways were ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... Hicks, Jr., indignantly. "You and I, Theophilus, would give a Rajah's ransom just to hear the fellows whoop it up for us like that, and it has no more effect on that sodden hulk of a Thor than bombarding an English super-dreadnaught with Roman candles! Howsomever, Coach Corridan exploded a shrapnel bomb on old ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... of Belrem [188]. A dungeon fit but for malefactors holds, while I speak, the first lord of England, and brother-in-law to its king. Nay, hints of famine, torture, and death itself, have been darkly thrown out by this most disloyal count, whether in earnest, or with the base view of heightening ransom. At length, wearied perhaps by the Earl's firmness and disdain, this traitor of Ponthieu hath permitted me in the Earl's behalf to bear the message of Harold. He came to thee as to a prince and a friend; sufferest thou thy liegeman to detain him as ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... half-dead, two young knights named Palamon and Arcite, whom the heralds recognised, from the cognisances on their armour, as of blood-royal, and born of two sisters. Theseus sent them to Athens to be held to ransom in prison perpetually, and ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... John de Matha In the strength the Lord Christ gave, And begged through all the land of France The ransom of the slave. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... When Greece came hither, I had fifty sons; But fiery Mars hath thinn'd them. One I had, One, more than all my sons, the strength of Troy, Whom, standing for his country, thou hast slain— Hector. His body to redeem I come Into Achaia's fleet, bringing myself, Ransom inestimable to thy tent. Rev'rence the gods, Achilles! recollect Thy father; for his sake compassion show To me, more pitiable still, who draw Home to my lips (humiliation yet Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son!" ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... slave. They took him before a magistrate, and proved their charge; but one of the slavecatchers held out the hope that his master would sell him. The poor slave gave fifty dollars himself toward his freedom, and his ransom was well made up when word came from his owner in Kentucky that he would not part with him for any sum. His captors then took Marshall to Cincinnati, where he was lodged for safe keeping over night in the fourth story ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... had begun to drop away at the first and second joints. Every movement brought pain, but the fire box was insatiable, wringing a ransom of torture from their miserable bodies. Day in, day out, it demanded its food—a veritable pound of flesh—and they dragged themselves into the forest to chop wood on their knees. Once, crawling thus in search of dry sticks, unknown to each other they entered ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... old Mrs. Sargent paused in her work, "Elder Ransom from Acreville stopped with us last night, an' he tells me they recite the Euthanasian Creed every few Sundays in the Episcopal Church. I did n't want him to know how ignorant I was, but I looked up the word in the dictionary. It means easy death, and I can't see any sense in ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the height of his ascendancy he did not disdain to stand in the public place in Sienna, and, trembling in every vein, beg money from the people to ransom a friend from captivity. Do I appear to thee to speak with mysterious significance? Thy countrymen shall too soon help ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... defiance to the German Kaiser, when he refused to accept arbitration and was determined to make war on Venezuela. The president cabled: "Admiral Dewey with the Atlantic Fleet sails to-morrow." And the Kaiser accepted arbitration. Raissuli, the Moroccan bandit, who had seized and held for ransom an American citizen named Perdicaris, gave up his captive on receipt of this cable: "Perdicaris alive or Raissuli dead." He settled the war between Russia and Japan and won the ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... himself at the siege of Tunis, and later was taken prisoner by a Barbary corsair, and was kept in cruel captivity for five years at Algiers, It was customary with the Algerines to treat their prisoners according to their supposed rank and expected ransom. The avarice of the masters sometimes alleviated the lot of the Christian slaves; but, unfortunately for Cervantes, he was treated with extreme severity in order to compel him to obtain ransom from his friends, while he, the very soul of independence, tried to escape ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... "A king's ransom would hardly have procured all that my other daughters asked." he said: "but I thought that I might at least take Beauty her rose. I beg you to forgive me, for you see I meant ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various |
