"To the hilt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and ran it into the leg of the trembling ox three times, up to the hilt. Then he put the knife in his pocket, and they took their whips. The oxen's flanks quivered, and they foamed at the mouth. Straining, they moved the wagon a few feet forward, then stood with bent backs to keep it from sliding back. From the black ox's nostrils foam and blood were streaming ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... the body of their opponent, not being able to draw it out, thus being helpless when attacked by another of the enemy. It is no use telling men not to drive their bayonet in more than three or four inches, for in the speed and fury of a charge they will always drive it in right up to the hilt, and while we retain this out-of-date weapon we should certainly put a guard on it not further than six inches from the point. I have used a hand-bayonet which sticks out from the fist like a knuckle-duster and is about six inches ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... chief's grave mound in Vendland, It was the most wondrous sword, save only Olaf's 'Hneitir' yonder, that I have ever seen. Silver and gold was its hilt, and the blade was wrought in patterns on the steel, and there were runes in gold close to the hilt. He would call it 'Foe's Bane', and that in truth was what the ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... showing any of these negative reactions of mine any more than she was showing hers, except for her stopping smiling. In fact I hadn't stopped smiling, I was playing the game to the hilt. ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... Olimpia made a lunge at his right side. The Captain hugged Bellaroba there. At the next moment the long knife was below his left arm, buried to the hilt, and defender and defence rolled heavily to the floor. Olimpia walked to the table and helped herself to ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... other times. She is so absorbed in her task that she may readily be watched, even through a magnifying glass. The ovipositor, which is about four-tenths of an inch in length, is plunged obliquely and up to the hilt into the twig. So perfect is the tool that the operation is by no means troublesome. We see the Cigale tremble slightly, dilating and contracting the extremity of the abdomen in frequent palpitations. This is all that can be seen. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the caballero walked up to his black antagonist and shook his red cloth at him. Twice he let him pass under his arm. At the third attempt he thrust his blade up to the hilt into the neck of the beast. For another minute perhaps the bull rages, then he begins to bleed from his mouth, he totters and then collapses. Immediately a kind of hangman's assistant sneaks up from behind and plunges ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... perished on the sand-bank. Both mechanically called each other by name, and both sprang forward. The blow of Newton's sword was warded off by the miscreant; but at the same moment that of Monsieur de Fontanges was passed through his body to the hilt. Newton had just time to witness the fall of Jackson, when a tomahawk descended on his head; his senses failed him, and he lay among the dead upon ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Jr., had been elected to the legislature he'd altered the position of things in South Carolina. All these corruptions would have been exposed, and the disparity of party would have dwindled into obscurity. Every true Carolinian voted for him to the hilt, but how was he defeated? Gentlemen, can you answer? it will be a favor highly gratifying to me to hear your opinions!" A voice answered, "Because he wasn't big enough!" "No, sir," said George, "it was because there was ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... she hath carved my heart to pieces! Commit thy office, Hiary!" The lithe lackey sprang upon Christopher and drove the knife, it appeared, to the hilt, and with a ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... poniard somewhere, that is all I know, up to the hilt in a sheath of flesh; but in a second I was taken, carried off, dipped in ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... he, but the senate, must be the judge; the case must be decided on its merits, not out of consideration for his own outraged feelings. Piso was charged with having corrupted the soldiery, levied war on the province of Syria, and poisoned Germanicus. All except the last charge were proved up to the hilt; for that alone there was no evidence. Piso, however, despaired, fearing less the ebullitions of popular wrath than the emotionless implacability of the emperor. He was found dead in his room; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... palm of his right hand, clapped it to the hilt of his re-sheathed cutlass, and half drew it from the scabbard. "My!" he ejaculated, and his eyes seemed to flash in the morning sunshine. "It's going to be a warm time for some of 'em. I shouldn't like to be in that Yankee gentleman's shoes, nor ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Ricks," he said impressively, I desire to inform you that, so far as the steamer Tillicum is concerned, I venerate you as a human Christmas tree. I'm the villain in this sketch and proud of it. You're stabbed to the hilt! Why should I be expected to pay the debts of ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... disentanglement as Darwin pursued. It means the attainment of something positive and emphatic in the way of a conclusion, based on amply repeated experiments capable of infinite repetition, "proved," as they say, "up to the hilt." ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... He staggered to one side, made several vain attempts to straighten himself, then fell suddenly to the earth. His own blade, however, remained in the breast of De Fervlans's horse, where he had thrust it to the hilt. ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... forward, and sent in a thrust which might have found its way to Dalbert's heart had the heavy sabre of a dragoon not descended from the side and shorn his more delicate weapon short off close to the hilt. With a shout of triumph, his enemy sprang furiously upon him with his rapier shortened, but was met by a sharp blow from the cudgel of the young stranger which sent his weapon tinkling on to the ground. A trooper, however, on the stair had pulled out a pistol, and ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tell you quite simply what she has said, Grace, and then you will understand. She says her father has mortgaged the Castle evidently up to the hilt. The mortgagees will foreclose in a couple of months, unless money can be found to buy them off. Now, it has just occurred to me that I might buy Castle O'Shanaghgan for ourselves as a sort of summer residence, put it in order, and allow Patrick O'Shanaghgan to live ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... fire hold the walls in ward Till the roof-tree crash! Be the smoke once riven While we flash from the gate like a single sword, True steel to the hilt, though ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... dream, a hot breath on his face, and suddenly waked to see two gleaming eyeballs close to his. With a movement more rapid than thought itself, he seized the wolf by the throat with his left hand, and picking up his navaja with the other, plunged it up to the hilt into the animal's breast. It must have gone through the heart, for he dropped down dead in the road, without ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... is killed, and the first mortally wounded, as it is thought. They fought against Captain Thomas Howard, my Lord Carlisle's brother, and another unknown; who, they say, had armour on that they could not be hurt, so that one of their swords went up to the hilt against it. They had horses ready, and are fled. But what is most strange, Howard sent one challenge, but they could not meet, and then another, and did meet yesterday at the old Pall Mall at St. James's, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... him, though less fair than that of Ziska- Charmazel! Remember, remember!" and she clung closer and closer as he staggered backward half suffocated by his own emotions and the horror of her touch. "Remember the fierce word!—the quick and murderous blow!—the plunge of the jewelled knife up to the hilt in the passionate white bosom of Charmazel!—the lonely anguish in which she died! Died,—but to live again and pursue her murderer!- -to track him down to his grave wherein the king strewed gold, and devils strewed curses!—down, down to the end of all his glory and conquest into the ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... the same sex only. There were three degrees of discipline. For the first offence the punishment was reproof; for the second, suspension from the Communion; for the third, expulsion from the congregation. And thus the Brethren proved up to the hilt that Christian work among the heathen was not mere waste ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... all that Mrs. Rathburn had anticipated. There were moments like the present when, with real pleasure, she could have run her needle to the hilt, as it were, in any convenient portion of Disston's anatomy. She seethed with resentment, and took it out upon the climate, the inhabitants, the customs of the country, and Teeters—who gave her the careful ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Patricia. She put a heart into my body and blood into my veins. What she said to me that night is what has kept me going, dad—what has made me drive this fight for a clean election on the part of the railroad company home to the hilt. I have driven it home. There will be no crooked deals on the part of the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... think it is worth doing twice. The interest wouldn't be fresh. For men and women and life, with a little different dress, are the same as they always were; and there's only the same number of passions working now, as at the beginning. I want to live life up to the hilt; because it is all new as I go ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Up to the hilt," said I cheerfully. "We had it all re-valued only this year, because of the rise ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... great writers is unchequered by any shade of patronage on the one hand, of jealousy or adulation on the other. The elder recognised in the younger an intellect as keen, a spirit as fearless as his own, who in the Eyre controversy had "plunged his rapier to the hilt in the entrails of the Blatant Beast," i.e. Popular Opinion. He admired all Ruskin's books; the Stones of Venice, the most solid structure of the group, he named "Sermons in Stones"; he resented an attack on Sesame and Lilies as if the book had been his own; and passages of the Queen ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... silent, with their eyes still fixed upon each other. They watched each other. Their swords were engaged up to the hilt. And it was like the heavy silence that goes before the mortal blow. Which of the ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... the street the angry man encountered a group of dark-haired, sallow-faced miners who were taking a holiday, and a hiss of "Papist! papist!" greeted him as he passed. His hand went to the hilt of his dagger, but the fellows flourished their oaken cudgels within an inch of his nose; so he contented himself with a counter hiss of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Frenchman had the measure of his brave young opponent. Then, with a laugh of evil intent, by a clever play he beat down the Spaniard's guard, shattering his weapon, and with a thrust as powerful as it was skilful, he drove the blade up to the hilt in poor de Tobar's bosom. The gallant but unfortunate gentleman dropped his own sword as he fell, and clasped his hands by a convulsive effort around the blade of de Lussan. Such was the violence of his grasp that he fairly hugged the sword to his ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... us to a meeting, one night, and we held a long palaver over the situation. We decided to become more cautious, in spite of a few hotheads who advised defiance to the hilt.... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... when Sigurd smote upon the anvil the keen steel clove into the metal right up to the hilt, and he pulled it out unhurt. Then he went to the river and flung up-stream a tuft of wool, and when the tide carried the wool against the edge of the sword it was cut in two. And then was Sigurd satisfied ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... There he has hit it up to the hilt. How do you like it now, gentlemen? is not this ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hand went to the hilt of his sheathed sword this time, as he cried out in rage, and sprang forward. Even then he would have remembered the promise he had given and would not have raised his hand to strike. But the first movement was enough, and Philip drew his rapier in a flash of light, fearing ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... purpled; Sir Blaise's hand swung to the hilt of his sword. Evander seemed to have forgotten his existence and to await quietly any further favor of speech from Brilliana. My Lady Mischief, much diverted, judged ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... momentarily, then went on rapidly, as if it were a relief to tell someone. "My father's life was insured. It has left my stepmother enough to live on; but, of course, not here. The place is mortgaged up to the hilt. I have nothing at all. I have got to ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... idea I adopted. Over the stye, about ten feet from the ground, the limb of a walnut tree stretched across, and my idea was to drop a line over the bough and make it fast round the porker's snout, haul him up on his hind legs, and bury my knife up to the hilt in his throat about where I thought his heart was situated. Away I went and procured my cord, threw the end over the limb, made a noose, and got it in the pig's mouth and over his nose; then I hauled away amid the most blood-curdling shrieks ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... Beast of mighty Size, and vast Limbs, who came with open Jaws upon him; and fixing his aweful stern Eyes full upon those of the Beast, and putting himself into a very steady and good aiming Posture of Defence, ran his Sword quite through his Breast, down to his very Heart, home to the Hilt of the Sword: The dying Beast stretch'd forth her Paw, and going to grasp his Thigh, surpriz'd with Death in that very Moment, did him no other Harm than fixing her long Nails in his Flesh very deep, feebly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... for aid. I heard steps in the passage—some one opened the door—it was you, Sir, and I begged you to save my life, and unloosen the fiend's grasp from my throat, but instead of the assistance I expected, you seized the knife from the old woman's hand, and with a derisive laugh, plunged it to the hilt in my heart. I awoke with a scream of agony, and with the perspiration streaming from ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... gentleman left the Fitzwilliam mansion at a quarter past four. At five o'clock in the afternoon the lawyer was found dead in Phoenix Park. Between a quarter past four and eight o'clock in the evening Percival Brooks never left the house—that was subsequently proved by Oranmore up to the hilt and beyond a doubt. Since the will found under old Brooks' pillow was a forged will, where then was the will he did make, and which Wethered carried away with ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... furious, and pressing on each other inflicted and received several slight wounds. It was directly after receiving one of these in his arm, that Mr Haredale, making a keener thrust as he felt the warm blood spirting out, plunged his sword through his opponent's body to the hilt. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Charles of Lorraine. Those flying squadrons, beneath whose horses' hoofs the ground is trembling as if upheaved by an earthquake, are headed by Eugene—the indomitable Eugene. On his foam-flecked steed, with a sword in his hand that is gory to the hilt, comes the "little abbe," who was too much of a weakling to obtain a commission in the army of the King of France. If his mother could see him now, she would confess that he was no fit ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... collapse. Instead of which I found him gaily awaiting me at the station to tell me he had run himself out—or some bosh of the kind—and it was now my innings, and I was to go in and win. On my soul, Olga, he was enjoying himself up to the hilt." ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... antagonist, however, stood firm, until the Frenchman, with a nimble caper, changed his ground, when the officer bounded forward, got within the guard of his opponent, and with a thrust, the force of which nothing could withstand, sent his sword, apparently, through the body of the Frenchman to the hilt! ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the writers of saucer lore have played this sighting to the hilt, pointing out as their main premise the fact that the story must be true because the government never openly exposed or prosecuted either of the two hoaxers. This is a logical premise, but a false one. The reason for the thorough investigation of the Maury Island Hoax was that the government ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... that," murmured Mr. Jacobs, cheerfully. "Proved up to the hilt. Marquess, I congratulate you—and you, too, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... hundred years' growth and struck Bova with it on the head; but Bova staggered not under the blow; with both hands he seized his battle sword, and aimed at Polkan to slay him; but he missed his blow, and the sword was struck half-way up to the hilt in the earth, and Bova fell from his saddle. Then Polkan caught his horse; but the horse began to fight with his feet, and bite with his teeth, until Polkan fled. The horse followed him, until Polkan's strength quite failed ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... Tokyo has been, therefore, in every way justified, if it is a reasonable and legitimate thing for a nation of four hundred millions of people to be acutely concerned about their independence; for events have already proved up to the hilt that so far from the expulsion of Germany from Shantung having resulted in the handing-back of interests which were forcibly acquired from China in 1898, that expulsion has merely resulted in Japan succeeding ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... his unhurt limbs to him in his amazement, 'Come now,' said he, 'let us try thy body with my steel;' and up to the hilt he plunged his fatal sword into his shoulder-blade, and extended his hand unseen into his entrails, and worked it about, and in the wound made a {fresh} wound. Lo! the double-limbed {monsters,} enraged, rush on in an impetuous manner, and all of them hurl and thrust their ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... A. M., when a large and powerful man rushed out of the ladies' cabin with nothing on but his night-shirt, and with a large butcher-knife in his hand. He rushed to one of the tables, where there were seven seated, and before they could rise he plunged the knife up to the hilt in two of the men. I jumped up and ran out into the hall, determined to kill him if he made a break for me; but the Captain hallooed at me, "Don't shoot, he is a crazy man." He had been brought on board ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... Keviti, which they sank still deeper. The wolf used his utmost power to free himself, and, opening his mouth, tried to bite them. When the gods saw that they took a sword and thrust it into his mouth, so that it entered his under jaw right up to the hilt, and the point reached his palate. He howled in the most terrible manner, and since then the foam has poured from his mouth in such abundance that it forms the river called Von. So the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... splash in the sea. Fine supper for the sharks that night! At last old Bilboa got uppermost; out flashed his knife; down it came, but not in my heart. No! I gave my left arm as a shield; and the blade went through to the hilt, with the blood spurting up like the rain from a whale's nostril! With the weight of the blow the stout fellow came down so that his face touched mine; with my right hand I caught him by the throat, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sleeps in an unmarked grave somewhere in the South, and I know that the hope of freeing the slave actuated him to enlist in the army. For the Negro, my father buried his sword to the hilt in the blood of his Southern brother and in turn received a thrust, all for a race from which this vile miscreant has crept ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... contemptuously. He took up his long hunting-knife. "Wolf—this!" He drove the knife to the hilt into the ground. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... and shook himself free from her touch. In the same instant his hand flew to the hilt of ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... that part of the cavern where the floor was of rock, the blanket of Deerfoot was spread on the earth. Consequently when the Winnebago brought down his knife with such vicious spitefulness, it went through the folds of the blanket and was buried to the hilt in the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... world: the shouting died out, and I was alone.... I hadn't expected to be alone—in there, I mean. I had reckoned—was it wrong?—on honour counting among those in high places of authority for more than it did. We went in pledged up to the hilt: not in detail, not in legal terms, not as politicians, perhaps; but as men of honour—speaking each for the honour of our own nation. And that wasn't enough; for whom people stand pledged twice over—first ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... tremendous huzzas, some darting against the band, while others sprung from their horses to liberate the prisoners. But this duty had been already rendered, at least in the case of Captain Forrester. The axe of Wenonga, dripping with blood to the hilt, divided the rope at a single blow, and then Roland's fingers were crushed in the grasp of his preserver, as the latter exclaimed, with a strange, half-frantic chuckle ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the breath of battle better medicine than nostrum or salve. In youth, 'tis the sword-point; in age, turn we to the hilt-cross. But this maid—have you ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... never do that," he said softly. "I've been through the mill myself once—years ago now, but the scar still stays—and it'll be a bit more red hell for the present. But if there's any saving you, any proving this thing right up to the hilt, I'll do it. That's all I wanted to say. Good-bye, and—buck up. I'm going to speak to the little girl now, and cheer her up, too. You'll hear ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... that got there first and brought him a young eagle, should have the squaw. The Frenchman climbed up the back stairs and got there ahead of the Indian, when the young Indian drew from his trousers leg a bar of railroad iron and drove it to the hilt in the breast of the Frenchman, not, however, till the Frenchman had drawn from his pistol pocket a 300 ton Krupp gun and sent a solid shot weighing 280 pounds crashing into the skull of the Indian, and both rolled to the bottom of the bluff, dead. Dr. Hall, of Baraboo, was called, and ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... him die!" And as he spake he caught in his left hand the old man's white hair and dragged him, slipping the while in the blood of his own son, to the altar, and then, lifting his sword high for a blow, drove it to the hilt in the old man's side. So King Priam, who had ruled mightily over many peoples and countries in the land of Asia, was slain that night, having first seen Troy burning about him and his citadel laid even with the ground. So was his carcass cast out upon the ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... placing his foot on the dead body, dexterously received the well aimed tomahawk of his powerful enemy on the barrel of his rifle, thus preventing his skull from being cloven by it. In the very attitude of firing the Indian had exposed his body to the knife of Boone, who plunged it in his body to the hilt. This is the achievement commemorated in sculpture over the southern door of the Rotunda in ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... backward, his foot slipped on the newly-waxed floor, and his sword-hand rose in spite of himself. Almost by instinct D'Harmental profited by it, lunged within, and pierced the captain's chest, where the blade disappeared to the hilt. D'Harmental recovered to parry in return, but the precaution was needless; the captain stood still an instant, opened his eyes wildly, the sword dropped from his grasp, and pressing his two hands to the wound, he fell at full length on ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... side by a quick movement, he sprang to his feet, and as Overman rose, fastened his enormous hairy left hand on his throat and closed it with the clutch of a bear. His enemy writhed and plunged the steel twice to the hilt in Gordon's breast before his big right hand found the knife and wrenched ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... well," says he, "for I bade the coward stand up so that I could run him through to the hilt," and he clanked the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... hope. When they heard he was coming, they held their breath to see if the magnet had been in the dagger for him too. He arrived in the night, and in the morning she was found in her bed with the dagger to the hilt in her heart. They accused him, and he would not say yes or no, but they could prove nothing and let him go. And when he died the dagger was found among his possessions. No one could ever say how he got it. But it has remained in his family until to-day—and ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... do the trick: and he tried it. May had been practising some weeks. He's well on the Continent by this time. It'll blow over. Button off sheer accident. I wasn't lucky enough to see the encounter: came in just when Chiallo was lashing his poll over Morsfield flat on the ground. He had it up to the hilt. We put a buttoned foil by the side of Morsfield, and all swore to secrecy. As it is, it 'll go badly against poor Chiallo. Taste for fencing won't be much improved by the affair. They quarrelled in the dressing room, and fetched the foils and knocked off the buttons there. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down a stick or fork are pretty sure to find a corpse. I saw a man run a cane in the debris down to the hilt and it came up with human flesh sticking to it. Another ran a stick into the thoroughly cooked skull of a little boy two feet below the surface. There are bodies probably as far down as seventy feet in some cases, and it does not seem plain now how they are to be recovered. One plan ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches the surface of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... I soon learned, I was down but a moment, I sprang quickly to my feet searching for my sword, and there I found it, buried to the hilt in the green breast of Zad, who lay stone dead upon the ochre moss of the ancient sea bottom. As I regained my full senses I found his weapon piercing my left breast, but only through the flesh and ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the case, and producing a sword. The light fell upon the hilt, and I drew back, dazzled with its lustre; it was covered with stones, apparently of the most costly value. Attached to the hilt was a label of purple velvet, on which, in letters of gold, was inscribed, "To the son of Marshal Devereux, the soldier of France, and the friend ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... away, and at a little distance they came upon the big Indian, covered up with leaves. About a hundred yards farther, they found the Indian Joe had crippled, lying on his back, with his own knife sticking up to the hilt in his body, just below the breast bone, evidently to show that he had killed himself. Some years after this fight, Big Joe Logston lost his life in a contest with a gang of outlaws. He was one of those characters who were necessary to the settlement of the west, but who ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the Bohemian flew to his brain; or ever any one could hinder him, his knife was buried to the hilt in the other's shoulder. All hastened to help the Brandenburger, and when presently some turned to seize the criminal he was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fingers. And Peter cried out and exhorted Artasires to kill the most unholy of all men. And Artabanes, seeing Gontharis leaping to his feet (for he reclined close to him), drew a two-edged dagger which hung by his thigh—a rather large one—and thrusting it into the tyrant's left side clean up to the hilt, left it there. And the tyrant none the less tried to leap up, but having received a mortal wound, he fell where he was. Ulitheus then brought his sword down upon Artasires as if to strike him over the head; but ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... wave of the flag, and with the last blind, lunging charge the swordsman slips aside, and his blade runs up to the hilt behind the bull's shoulder. The hammered steel feels the great tired heart within, and the enemy falls—the ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... bugler from the adjoining barracks playing retreat at the moment of decision. All at once the matador seizes the favorable instant. He poises his sword as the bull rushes upon him. The point enters just between the left shoulder and the spine; the long blade glides in up to the hilt. The bull reels and staggers and dies. Sometimes the matador severs the vertebrae. The effect is like magic. He lays the point of his sword between the bull's horns, as lightly as a lady who touches her cavalier with her fan, and he falls dead as ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... though, Heaven knows, I dreamed not it was thou! But I tell thee, Hugh, if thou, or any man, attempt to lay defiling touch upon any nun in this Priory—myself, or another—I strike, and I strike home. This blade will be driven up to the hilt in the offender's heart." ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... these things when you execrate the press; for they happen every day to plain fellows, some of them profane fellows, who make no professions and blow no trumpet. When the news editor walked out of the office that morning, he owned, besides the Smelter City lots, which were mortgaged to the hilt, and six "kiddies," who had to be fed, precisely the five dollar bill in his pocket, the clothes on his back and the duster coat that he carried out on his arm. It was a mere detail, of course; but it was one of the details ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... reverend gentleman castigates all the nations at war with the same offence—lying. His work should have permanent value in the literature of war psychology, but he only undertakes to expose German lies, and in his 72-paged booklet he proves to the hilt the charges made in ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... accorded, for there was no one present who was not suffering from the prolongation of this horrible tragedy, and anxious to see it finished. Perceiving their assent, he placed one of his pistols between his teeth, and drawing a dagger from his belt, plunged it in his breast up to the hilt. He still remained standing and seemed greatly surprised. There ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... there isn't a peso left on the two ranches to ransom even Baby Buntin' if the little rat is still alive, and that ain't all Kit: it don't seem possible that Conrad and Singleton mortgaged both ranches clear up to the hilt, but it sure has happened, every acre is plastered with ten per cent paper and the compound interest strips it from Billie just as sure as if it was droppin' through to China. When Conrad was on the job he had it all blanketed, but now saltpeter ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless melee Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded in breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de Tineo, alferez (or lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded him severely with a pike. Uruj stumbled, ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... the common rat. Its complicity in the spread of the plague, which has been proved up to the hilt, has filled the cup of its iniquities to overflowing, and we have awakened to the fact that it is and always has been an arch-enemy of mankind. Simultaneously, in widely separated parts of the world, a "pogrom" has been proclaimed, and the accounts of the massacre which come ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... to say that I am not an officer, and a gentleman in distress, sir?" cried the captain, clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, a movement imitated by Ralph, angrily. But Sir Morton stood ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... what to do about it. The Paris Reds were rather in favour of a demonstration, while London bade them, in God's name, to hold their hands, for, as they pointed out, England is the only refuge in which an anarchist is safe until some particular crime can be imputed to him, and what is more, proven up to the hilt. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Bogdan, and an idea flashed through his mind, to whip the thing out of the scabbard and run it up to the hilt in the hussy's body. But her rounded hips, her bright billowing skirts confused him. In war he had never had to do with women. He could not exactly imagine what it would be like to make a thrust into that beskirted body there. His glance ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... said, as they fought their way into the room, 'I could have proved that about the jewels up to the hilt if I had been allowed. Why, my aunt was speaking to me about them that very night, and she said Miss Owen knew ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... forest fight. It saved him now. The club cut through the air over his head, and, carried by the momentum of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the full force of his two hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Jan's knife swept in an upward flash and plunged to the hilt through the flesh of his enemy's forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and the two crashed to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack that Jan had feared and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like squirming movement he swung himself half free, and on his back, with ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... use thy poignard again. Thy left arm is disabled," rejoined Mompesson—"besides, my sword passed through thee almost to the hilt." ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... lay groaning on the floor, the knife was buried up to the hilt in her breast, and yet she did not utter a cry as she recognized her murderer. She restrained herself with superhuman power, fearing to give the alarm ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... evidence, that first pointed to, and then proved up to the hilt, this answer to the question: What is Man? has been gathered in less than the last fifty years. Darwin and Huxley, and Spencer, who first opened men's eyes to their origins, were ignorant of the very existence of some of them, and had not the faintest ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... Bellegarde, a gallant old gentleman, after the fashion of the Court of Henri III., pleased her till he was going to the army, when he begged for one favour before his departure, which was only to put her hand to the hilt of his sword, a compliment so insipid that her Majesty was out of conceit with him ever after. She approved the gallant manner of M. de Montmorency much more than she loved his person. The aversion she had to the pedantic behaviour of Cardinal de Richelieu, who in his amours was as ridiculous as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... or risk to their own yellow skins. If it involved the killing of a few foreign devils—well, so much to the good. The ship, however, arrived before the fishermen had decided upon any active steps, and we got our catch alongside without any delay. The truth of Mr. Count's forecast was verified to the hilt, for we found that the captain was so badly bruised about the body that he was unable to move, while one of the hands, a Portuguese, was injured internally, and seemed very bad indeed. Had any one told us that morning that we should be sorry to ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... saying he reclined her on the divan, and taking her thighs in his arms, he drove his lance to the hilt into her body. They seemed no longer to know what they were about. Joined as they were together, they seemed to experience the utmost voluptuousness. Amy especially appeared to be enjoying the delights of heaven. Her rapid movements, her exclamation of supreme ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... distinguish whether it was right or wrong at the moment of committing it. The law, which assumes that a man is sane and responsible for his acts, throws upon the defence the onus of proving otherwise, and proving it up to the hilt, before it permits an accused person to escape the responsibility of his acts. Such a defence usually resolves itself into a battle between medical experts and the counsel engaged, the Crown endeavouring to upset the medical ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... other could withdraw himself, Perceval thrust his sword to the hilt into the loathsome throat of the dragon. Thereupon the dragon gave so terrible a cry that the earth seemed to shake with the horror of it. And in its wrath and pain the dragon's head turned upon the Black Knight its master, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... his axe after throwing the stone. He immediately whirled the heavy head so violently against the descending sword that the blade broke off close to the hilt, and Glumm stood before him, disarmed and helpless, gazing in speechless astonishment at the hilt which ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... setting spurs to his horse, he dashed forward, and on coming abreast of his companion, drew his knife and struck him in the back, dealing the blow with such a concentrated fury that the knife was buried almost to the hilt. Then violently wrenching it out, he would have struck again had not the earl, with a scream of agony, tumbled from his seat. The horse, freed from its rider, rushed on in a sudden panic, and the king's horse side by side with ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... was spilt, sir, Hath gain'd all the gilt, sir; Thus have you seen me run my Sword up to the hilt, sir. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... chair as high as his breast, with a view, it is supposed, of keeping Wilson off. Wilson then caught hold of the chair with his left hand, raised it up, and with his right hand deliberately thrust the knife, up to the hilt, into Anthony's heart, and as deliberately drew it out, and wiping off the blood with his thumb and finger, retired near to the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... paper looked to be a great scheme, but what it lacked was business brains in its management, and as a result its career was a short and stormy one, it being war to the knife and the knife to the hilt between the two great rival organizations. After four courts had decided that the players had a right to leave the National League, each of the clubs located in the Players' League signed a compact to play with that organization for ten years. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... play," Effingston's antagonist hissed between his teeth, making another furious lunge. The impetus given to the thrust would have sent the blade to the hilt into the other's body had it come in contact with it, but Effingston met the blow in a way least expected, making use of a trick but little known in England at that time, for as quickly as the sword flew forward he stepped ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... my lucubrations to Punch will remember that I have devoted sundry jots and tittles to the subject of Miss JESSIMINA MANKLETOW, and already may have concluded that I was long since up to the hilt in the tender passion. In this deduction, however, they would have manufactured a stentorian cry from an extreme paucity of wool; the actual fact being that, although percipient of the well-proportionate symmetry of her person and the ladylike liveliness of her deportment, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... or cuirass was punished with imprisonment. The laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting words to another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; and the offender was obliged to solicit pardon of his majesty. If one threatened another by clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he was to be assomme according to the ordinance; which may either mean knocked down, or soundly mauled—or the two together. If two men came to blows, they were both assomme. A still more serious breach of politeness, however, was the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... I realised that he was in some way connected with that adventure in the Rue de Rabagas. What he said and did, proved it to the hilt.' ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... dwelt something like 1500 Indians, mostly old squaws and papooses with a few able-bodied warriors. Few escaped with their lives and those who did escape were entirely destitute for the soldiers set fire to their tents after loading their wagons to the hilt with whatever they considered might be of value, buffalo robes, moccasins, blankets and other assets, together with all the provisions from the camp. There were several tons of the latter—buffalo meat, antelope, venison, goat, ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... hands were lifted to the hilt of his long blade, and he raised it above him, straight and shining, throwing sparkles of light around it, like the spray from the sharp prow of a moving ship. Bright flames of heavenly ardour leaped in the eyes of the listening angels; a martial air passed over their faces as if they longed for ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... answered Danveld. And he thrust his knife into de Fourcy's side with such strength, that the blade disappeared up to the hilt. De Fourcy screamed dreadfully; for a while he tried to seize his sword which he held in his left hand, with his right, but he dropped it; at the same time, the other three brothers began to pierce him mercilessly with their knives, in the neck, in the back, and in the stomach, until he ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... up to the hilt into your back, with an oath, and slice open a melon with it, with a song, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... torch, jumped into the passage, where bad luck awaited him. My good master was no longer there; he had taken to his heels. But M. d'Anquetil was still there with Catherine, and he it was who received the burning torch on his forehead, an outrage he could not stand. He drew his sword, and drove it to the hilt in the unlucky knave's stomach, teaching him, at his own expense, how fatal it may be to attack a gentleman. Now M. Coignard had not got twenty yards away from the house when the other lackey, a tall fellow, with ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... for about the space of one minute: and meanwhile the big man rose up on one knee and steadied him with his sword for a moment of time, and the blade was bloody from the point half way up to the hilt; but the black knight lay still and made no sign of life. Then the Knight of the Sun rose up slowly and stood on his feet and faced the Lady and seemed not to see Ralph, for his back was towards him. He came slowly toward the Lady, scowling, and his face white as chalk; then he spake to her ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the edge-feat of swords they were engaged When this surprise occurred, and it was then Ferdiah an unguarded moment found Upon Cuchullin, and he struck him deep, Plunging his straight-edged sword up to the hilt Within his body, till his girdle filled With blood, and all the Ford ran red with gore From the brave battle-warrior's veins outshed. This could Cuchullin now no longer bear Because Ferdiah still the unguarded spot Struck and re-struck with quick, strong, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... at the megaphone instance of the barker, waggled suddenly into motion, and, flouncing back her bushy knee-skirts and kissing to the four winds, threw back her head and swallowed an eighteen-inch carpenter's saw to the hilt. The crowd ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... territory to the pope. Thus, by a successful soldier, two important events had been accomplished—a revolution in France, attended by a change of dynasty, and a revolution in Christendom—the Bishop of Rome had become a temporal sovereign. To the hilt of the sword of France the keys of St. Peter were henceforth so firmly bound that, though there have been great kings, and conquerors, and statesmen who have wielded that sword, not one to this day has been able, though many have desired, to wrench ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... thee my child's devoured!" The frantic father cried; And to the hilt his vengeful sword He plunged ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various |
