"Bowstring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strokes Henry had scored high to Gilbert's nothing, and the boy dropped the ball at his feet to tighten the network he had made on his hand by winding a bowstring in and out between his fingers and across the palm, as men did before rackets were thought of. Suddenly he turned half round and faced Gilbert, planting himself with his sturdy legs apart and crossing his arms, which were bare to ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... boys came in sight, but this time there were only two of them, as the youngest had stayed at home. The air was warm and damp, and the snow soft and slushy, and the elder brother's bowstring hung loose, while the bow of the younger caught in a tree and snapped in half. At that moment the dogs began to bark loudly, and the bear rushed out of the thicket and set off in the direction of the mountain. Without thinking that they had ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it! but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsmen, and smiting the sea, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... suspense, the news of another revolution filled him with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly Hospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the gentleman to whom the drama of "Hellas" is dedicated. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 240 Trails a long line of lustre through the skies; "'Tis done!" he shouts, "the mighty Monarch feels!" And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels; Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves, His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves. 245 —Pierced on his throne the slarting Thunderer turns, Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns; Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze. "And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride, 250 "The fanes ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... thread, about an eighth of an inch from the pointed end. When the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch the thread will be stretched above the curved needle, something like a bowstring, leaving a small open space between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin, filled with thread, is then made to pass entirely through this open space, between the needle and the thread which it carries; and when the shuttle is returned the thread which ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... to me, not many months ago, as he sat in his palace, crowned and dreary and trying to cheat me out of my fair profit on some emeralds,—'Jurgen, I cannot sleep of nights, because of that fool Alexius, who comes into my room with staring eyes and the bowstring still about his neck. And my Varangians must be in league with that silly ghost, because I constantly order them to keep Alexius out of my bedchamber, and they do not obey me, Jurgen. To be King of the East is not to the purpose, Jurgen, when one must submit to such vexations.' Yes, it was Caesar ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... neither of the warriors is scathed, for there was a waste place betwixt them. Now then for the shaft and the bow!" The maiden looked eagerly with knitted brows, and soon saw Osberne take up the shaft and nock it on the bowstring. ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... down or to have his pocket picked, yet he has the insolence to think every foreigner a miserable slave, and his country the seat of everything wretched. They may talk of liberty as they please, but Spain or Turkey for my money: barring the bowstring and the inquisition, they are the most comfortable countries under heaven, and you need not be afraid of either, if you do not talk of religion and politics. I do not see much difference too in this respect in England, for when I was there, one of their most eminent men for ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Indian is an exceptionally fine specimen of physical manhood. His whole method of life tends to this result. He lives in the open air. He may be said to be born with arms in his hands. From the moment he is old enough to draw a bowstring, he commences warfare on birds and small animals. As he advances to manhood, he becomes familiar with the use of firearms, and extends his warfare to the buffalo and the larger animals. He rides on horseback from infancy, and excels as a daring horseman. He goes on the warpath ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... advanced from the rest, stood the captain, with the fatal bowstring hanging carelessly on his arm, and his eyes intent to catch the slightest gesture of the king. "Behold!" ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... new-born majesty. "Know ye not that this Smyrna is our capital city, and we could confiscate your gold to our royal exchequer? Josiah is King here." And he took his seat upon the throne vacated by Sabbatai. "Get ye gone, or the bastinado and the bowstring shall be your portion." ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and laid her hand tremulously on his shoulder, and looked down at him with piteous, pleading eyes. No Circassian slave, afraid of bowstring and sack, could have entreated her ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... the tombs of Mahmoud's grandsons, nephews of the present Light of the Universe, and children of his sister, the wife of Halil Pasha. Little children die in all ways: these of the much-maligned Mahometan Royal race perished by the bowstring. Sultan Mahmoud (may he rest in glory!) strangled the one; but, having some spark of human feeling, was so moved by the wretchedness and agony of the poor bereaved mother, his daughter, that his Royal heart ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... whipcord," when requested by Mr. Gresham to untie a parcel, and it thereafter serves to spin a fine new top, to help Hal out of a difficulty with his toy, and in the final incident of the story, an archery contest, our provident hero, finding his bowstring "cracked," calmly draws from his pocket the still excellent piece of cord, and affixing it to his bow, wins the match. Hal betrays his great lack of self-control by exclaiming, "The everlasting whipcord, I declare," and thereupon Patty, Mr. Gresham's only child, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... brave Hobie Noble, Wi' his ain bowstring they band him sae; And I wat heart was ne'er sae sair, As when his ain five band him ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... beauteous Teacher, and awhile Gazed on her train with sympathetic smile. 'Beware of Love! she cried, ye Nymphs, and hear 'His twanging bowstring with alarmed ear; 'Fly the first whisper of the distant dart, 'Or shield with adamant the fluttering heart; 430 'To secret shades, ye Virgin trains, retire, 'And in your bosoms guard the vestal fire.' —The obedient Beauties hear her words, advised, And bow with ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... first had fled in vain. In the mid-chest I smote him, where the lungs Are seated: still the arrow sank not in, But fell, its errand frustrate, at his feet. Once more was I preparing, sore chagrined, To draw the bowstring, when the ravenous beast Glaring around espied me, lashed his sides With his huge tail, and opened war at once. Swelled his vast neck, his dun locks stood on end With rage: his spine moved sinuous as a bow, Till all his weight hung poised on flank and loin. And e'en as, when ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... to the sword, put to the edge of the sword. shoot dead; blow one's brains out; brain, knock on the head; stone, lapidate[obs3]; give a deathblow; deal a deathblow; give a quietus, give a coupe de grace. behead, bowstring, electrocute, gas &c. (execute) 972. hunt, shoot &c. n. cut off, nip in the bud, launch into eternity, send to one's last account, sign one's death warrant, strike the death knell of. give no quarter, pour out blood like water; decimate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... at home, and revolts and internal disorders. The Janizaries could no longer be trusted. They were open to bribes, intriguing, and a source of danger rather than strength; and finally a reforming Sultan touched a mine of gunpowder which led under their barracks, and they were exterminated, the bowstring and sword finishing the ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the first; he set his teeth, threw off his hat, and, knitting his brows with a resolute expression, prepared to take steady aim, though his heart beat fast and his thumb trembled as he pressed it on the bowstring. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... and the pacha, his predecessor, having in his opinion, as well as in that of the sultan, remained an unusual time in office, by an accusation enforced by a thousand purses of gold, he was enabled to produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan's "firmaun" appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate, very irascible, and ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... each man alone A single bowstring uses, and that his own; What matters it to any the worth that's buried? By its own waves the ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... experienced a sensation of relief while listening to her bubbling and effervescent nonsense. My mind had been kept on so high a tone, there was a strain, a tension, of which I was hardly conscious till the bowstring was slackened. Besides, she was associated with the recollections of Grandison Place,—she was a young person of my own sex, and she could talk to me of Mrs. Linwood, and Edith, and the friends of my rural life. So I tried to become reconciled to the visitation, and to do the honors of a hostess ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... My kind true wife! I will Protect them from thee, Landvogt! When I drew That bowstring, and my hand was quiv'ring, And with devilish joy thou mad'st me point it At the child, and I in fainting anguish Entreated thee in vain; then with a grim Irrevocable oath, deep in my soul, I vow'd to God in ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... would choose for fun, not if he were the party to be tossed, though it is a beanfeast for the onlookers. They manage it this way. A hide, freshly stripped from a bullock, smoking, bloody, and limber as a bowstring, is requisitioned; the hairy side is turned downwards, two strong men get hold of each corner, cutting holes in the green hide for their hands to have a good grip; they allow the hide to sag until it forms a sort of cradle, into which the unlucky one is dumped ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... present; but you may go to bed in the Albany, Piccadilly, with THAT for your pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed out his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring him into the bargain. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... bowstring. The arrow seemed to sing through the frosty air, and, a second later, the silence was broken by cheer after cheer. The apple lay upon the ground pierced right ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Compressing next nerve and notch'd arrow-head He drew back both together, to his pap Drew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow, And when the horn was curved to a wide arch, 145 He twang'd it. Whizz'd the bowstring, and the reed Leap'd off, impatient for the distant throng. Thee, Menelaus, then the blessed Gods Forgat not; Pallas huntress of the spoil, Thy guardian then, baffled the cruel dart. 150 Far as a mother wafts the fly aside[7] That haunts her slumbering babe, so far ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the country, and indeed the population is so large they would have very unsettled times of it. At every turning we meet people, or see their villages; all armed with bows and arrows. The bows are unusually long: I measured one made of bamboo, and found that along the bowstring it measured six feet four inches. Many carry large knives of fine iron; and indeed the metal is abundant. Young men and women wear the hair long, a mass of small ringlets comes down and rests on the shoulders, giving them the appearance of the ancient Egyptians. One side is often ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... a bowstring twanged to the fore and a young girl stumbled across Jack Battle's feet with a scream that rings, and rings, and rings in memory like the tocsin of a horrible dream. She was wounded in the shoulder. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Mouktar Pacha was not quite such an easy prey. The kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was instantly laid dead at his feet by a pistol-shot. "Wretch!" cried Mouktar, roaring like a bull escaped from the butcher, "dost thou think an Arnaout dies like an eunuch? I also am a Tepelenian! To arms, comrades! ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one hand down inside the other, and sat for a moment in silence as tense with stirring possibilities to the others as to himself. The Judge felt moved to a most unusual sensation, as if he were a loosened bowstring beside this twanging, taut intensity. He felt slightly dismayed to have his unspoken principles carried to this nth power. He had given the best of himself, all his thoughts, illusions, hopes, endeavors, to his ideal of success, but his ambition had never been concentrated enough to ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... buck went by. He had not spied us while we lay still, but the moment my comrade moved, he threw up his head and bounded off. Yet not before a quick twang from Sir Ludar's bowstring had sent an arrow into his quarter. "Are you mad?" cried I, in terror, "it is the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... manacled hands, kissing them wildly, and betraying in her childish grief all the deep, sensitive, despairing sorrow of a woman. The villain before her might have often beaten her, debased her immeasurably, but the mysterious cord that linked their beating hearts was unbroken, though it sang like a bowstring in the gusty horror that swept between, and stretched to attenuation as the elder spirit sank, groaning, into the abyss of its own wickedness. Hot tears gushed from her eyes, her little throat ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... hardening them by exposure to strong heat, at a certain distance from the fire. The entrails of the woodchucks, stretched, and scraped and dried, and rendered pliable by rubbing and drawing through the hands, answered for a bowstring; but afterwards, when they got the sinews and hide of the deer, they used them, properly dressed ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... middy,[13] caused the greatest affliction to Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts), during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though a decent man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the scimetar, he had so thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work remained, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... that evening radiant with a new pride and joy. The storm within me had shifted my whole being from one centre to another. Like the Greek maidens of old, I fain would cut off my long, resplendent tresses to make a bowstring for my hero. Had my outward ornaments been connected with my inner feelings, then my necklet, my armlets, my bracelets, would all have burst their bonds and flung themselves over that assembly like a shower of meteors. Only some personal sacrifice, ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... 3 millimeters broad. This is attached to the lower end of the stock by a simple series of loops. To the upper extremity it is attached by a loop that slips along the stock into the upper notch when the bow is strung for shooting. It is needless to remark that the bowstring is about 2 or 3 centimeters shorter than the stock, which in the moment of stringing must be bent to enable the upper extremity of the string to reach the upper notch and thereby acquire a sufficient tension to propel ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... parts, however, it was naked and low like the cord. Some of us thought they discovered openings through the cord into the pool or lake, that was included between that and the bow; but whether there were or were not such openings is uncertain. We sailed abreast of the low beach or bowstring, within less than a league of the shore, till sun-set, and we then judged ourselves to be about half-way between the two horns. Here we brought-to, and sounded, but found no bottom with one hundred and thirty fathom; and as it is dark almost instantly after sun-set in these latitudes, we suddenly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the foot, they tremble and revere. The day of labor, night's sad, sleepless hour, The inflictive scourge of arbitrary power, The bloody terror of the pointed steel, The murderous stake, the agonizing wheel, And (dreadful choice!) the bowstring or the bowl, Damps their faint vigor and unmans the soul. Disastrous fate! Still tears will fill the eye, Still recollection prompt the mournful sigh, When to the mind recurs thy former fame, And all the horrors ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Thorbrand Thorleik's son, sprang up on the roof, and cuts asunder Gunnar's bowstring. Gunnar clutches the bill with both hands, and turns on him quickly and drives it through him, and hurls him down on ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... horizons fade And thought forgets old gages in the ecstasy of view. The standards go by which the steps were made. On which we trod from former levels to the new. No time for backward glance, no pause for breath, Since impulse like a bowstring loosed us in full flight And in delirium of speed none aim considereth Nor in the blaze of burning codes can think of night. The whirring of sped wheels and horn remind That speed, more speed is best and peace is waste! They rank unfortunate who tag behind And only they seem wise who ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... it were, sucked them dry under the shelter of those repealed laws. The Roman Empire, formerly sold by auction to the highest bidder, and the Turkish emperors, whose necks are exposed every day to the bowstring, show us in very bloody characters the blindness of those men that make authority ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... [4] caused the greatest affliction to Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts) during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though otherwise a decent man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the cimeter, he had so thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work remained, and hardly any body to do ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... faith, and adhered to his resolution, as his nephew has done. Persons who suppose that a Russian Czar cannot be drowned, because belonging to that select class who are born to be strangled, would have it that the question would be settled by an application of the bowstring, or the sash of some guardsman, to the Imperial throat; and so a successful palace revolution lead to the postponement of the plan of emancipation for another quarter of a century. But Russian morality is of a much higher character than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... about," he answered. "I heard the twang of a bowstring and the swish of an arrow over my head. Some ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... kept in prison, till they grew Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne, One or the other, but which of the two Could yet be known unto the fates alone; Meantime the education they went through Was princely, as the proofs have always shown: So that the heir apparent still was found No less deserving to be ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... shall Thou destroy from the earth, And their seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against Thee, They imagined a mischievous device, Which they could not execute. For Thou wilt make them turn their back, Thou wilt make ready Thy bowstring against their faces. Be Thou exalted Jehovah in Thine own strength; We will sing and ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... head to foot. What was that Chippy had worked in among his sobs and moans? B.P.—the motto of their order—'Be Prepared.' Dick held himself tense as a bowstring, ready ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... upward, at arm's length before the body, the right as if grasping the bowstring and drawn back. (Shoshoni and Banak I.) "From their peculiar manner of holding the long bow ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... gleam had visited her chamber, was early astir. An ugly dream, it is said, troubled her. Though of ripe years, yet, as we have noticed before, love had not yet aimed his malicious shafts at her bosom, nor even tightened his bowstring as she tripped by, defying his power; so that the dream, which in others would appear but as the overflowing of a youthful and ardent imagination, seemed to her altogether novel and unaccountable, raising up new faculties, and endowing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Advancing once more each one throws the drawn bow and arrow upward, then toward the ground, calling heaven and earth to witness his vow to kill the other. Presently one gets a favorable opportunity, his bowstring twangs, and his opponent falls to the ground. The victor utters a cry of triumph, dances up to the body of his fallen foe, and cuts off the head with his bolo. He beckons and cries out to the relatives of the dead man to come ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... splendid Figures. Several in rich Caftans and glittering Turbans bustled through the Throng, and trampled over the Bodies of those they threw down; till to my great Surprize I found that the great Pace they went only hastened them to a Scaffold or a Bowstring. Many beautiful Damsels on the other Side moved forward with great Gaiety; some danced till they fell all along; and others painted their Faces till they lost their Noses. A Tribe of Creatures with busie Looks falling into a Fit of Laughter ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... him stood Mnestheus, eager for the prize, And straight the bowstring to his breast updrew, Aiming aloft. The lightning of his eyes Went with the arrow, as he twanged the yew. Ah pity! Fortune sped the shaft untrue. The bird he missed, but cut the flaxen ties That held the feet, and cleft the knots ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... harp that had but one long string, But one low song, but one brief wingy flight, Is voiceless, for my bowstring is cut off. Sever two locks of hair for my sake now, Spoil those bright coils of power, give me your hair, And with my mother twist those locks together Into a bowstring for me. Fierce small head, Thy stinging tresses shall scourge ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... ascended a very strong rapid, and arrived at a range of three steep cascades, situated in the bend of the river. Here we made a portage of one thousand three hundred yards over a rocky hill, which received the name of the Bowstring Portage, from its shape. We found that the Indians had greatly the advantage of us in this operation; the men carried their small canoes, the women and children the clothes and provisions, and at the end of the portage they were ready to embark; whilst it was necessary for our ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... reckon on is this, that with an impoverished air to breathe, their rebellious spirit will die out—the dogs!—and we'll have no more talk of social revolution. We'll draw their teeth, all right enough; or rather, twist the bowstring round their damned necks so tight that all their energy, outside of work, will be consumed in just keeping alive. Revolution, then? Forget it, Waldron! We'll kill that viper once ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... choosing extraordinary guests: Peruvians, formerly dictators, now become insurance agents, or generals transformed into salesmen for some wine house; Cuban chiefs half shot to pieces by the Spaniards; Cretes exiled by the Turks; great personages from Constantinople, escaped from the Sultan's silken bowstring, and displaying proudly their red fez in Paris, where the opera permitted them to continue their habits of polygamy; Americans, whose gold-mines or petroleum-wells made them billionaires for a winter, only to go to pieces and make them paupers ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... myself a bow, Mr Jack, and get reeds out of the edge of the long lake, to tie nails in the ends and use for arrows. I used to bind the nails in with whitey-brown thread well beeswaxed, and then dress the notch at the other end to keep the bowstring from splitting it up. I've hit rabbits with an arrow before now, though they always run into their holes. You can shoot with a bow and arrow ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... of her suffering and her terror, though her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and her mouth had grown stiff with its effort to command. The tension was torture. Her heart strings were drawn to the snapping point; her mind was a bowstring never relaxed, till every fiber of her ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... was fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of the humans. He did not like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. But he never removed his eyes ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... at Paris, or the present constitutional Monarchs of France or England. The proof of this is, that when the people are dissatisfied with their administration, or displeased with the sovereign, they have no difficulty in dispatching him. The twisting of a sash round the neck in Russia, the bowstring in Constantinople or Ispahan, are very effectual monitors—fully as much so as a hostile Parliamentary majority in the house of Commons or Chamber of Deputies. In a word, government in every country being conducted by the few over the many by the hundreds over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... city of sacred Zeleia. Having seized them, he drew together the notch [of the arrow] and the ox-hide string; the string, indeed, he brought near to his breast, and the barb to the bow. But after he had bent the great bow into a circle, the bow twanged, the bowstring rang loudly, and the sharp-pointed shaft bounded forth, impatient to wing its ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... "Everything twanged like a bowstring. I felt myself turned inside out, passed through a small sieve, and poured back into shape. The entire bow wall-screen was full of Earth. Something was wrong all right, and this time it was much, much worse. We'd come out of the jump about two hundred miles above the Pacific, pointed ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... knowest, thou god of love, that unnumbered saints and sages have surrendered the merits of their life-long penance at the feet of a woman. I broke my bow in two and burnt my arrows in the fire. I hated my strong, lithe arm, scored by drawing the bowstring. O Love, god Love, thou hast laid low in the dust the vain pride of my manlike strength; and all my man's training lies crushed under thy feet. Now teach me thy lessons; give me the power of the weak and the ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud, a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou knowest the governor ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... beautiful, even under her wet, dark hair. She seemed to be a Caucasian girl—maybe a Georgian. She wore a small gold cross which hung from a gold cord around her neck. There was another, and tighter, cord around her neck, too. I cut the silk bowstring and closed and bound her eyes with my handkerchief before I rowed out a little farther and lowered her into the deep channel which cuts eastward here like the scimitar of that true ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the Rainy River, about 20 miles from the head of Rainy River. It stands on a point of land where the Missachappa or Bowstring River and the Rainy River join. There is a dense forest covering the river bank where the mound is found. The owner of the land has made a small clearing, which now shows the mound to some extent to one standing on the deck of a steamer passing on the river. The distance ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... square-jawed man of thirty-six. His forehead is high and broad and his hair is worn longer than that of other young men—parted on the side and brushed back. He has thin lips and a mouth of unusual width. His mouth-line is as straight as a bowstring, and when he speaks, which is often, or smiles, which is not so frequent, he shows an even line ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... sculptured a hog on the Mosque of Omar, trying to make it into a kanisah (unclean idol-house). My people discovered the sacrilege, and"—he added with intent—"gave that Greek the bowstring, then quartered the body and threw ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... spent, As from a charnel cave she fled the tent; The wolfish dog suspiciously outside Sniffed at her moccasins but let her pass. Her tipi soon she reached, distant no more Than arrow from a warrior's bowstring sent, Paused but to wipe her knife upon the grass, And found her usual couch upon the floor. But not to sleep; she closed her eyes in vain, Shutting away the moonlight from her view; Darkness and moonlight wore the same dread hue, ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... had spent its upward flight, Stacy Brown's bowstring sang, a slender dark streak sped through the air, its course laid directly for the hat of which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... as in Italy; all "violence" is violently denounced; and beheading being deemed cruel, the most atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offenses which in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to a beyship or a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Faizoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates; when you curse your boatman, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... turn to shoot first, and he pulled back his bowstring and braced himself to let go. Right here it may be said that at thirty yards an arrow propelled by an Indian-made bow is just as deadly as a bullet, if it hits its mark. But Injun shot a little high and caught the buck in the shoulder. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... litter to carry the Skull-Splitter on," exclaimed Einar Bowstring-Twanger (the sheriff's son); "he'll never get to Witch-Martha alive if he is ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the Pillows of his Divan on the pummel of his saddle to keep his Stomach steady. An end, however, was put to the discomfort he suffered through Corpulence, by the arrival, three weeks after the suppression of the Insurrection, of a Tartar Courier, who brought with him a Bowstring and a Firman from the Grand Seignor. By means of the Bowstring, the Fat Bashaw was then and there strangled,—for they do things in a very off-hand manner in Turkey,—and when the Firman was opened by his Vizier it was found to contain, not his own nomination ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... birds were fighting within thirty yards of the spot where the Bushman lay. The twang of a bowstring might have been heard by one of the koris, had he been listening. The other could not possibly have heard it; for before the sound could have reached him, a poisoned arrow was sticking through his ears. The barb had passed through, and the shaft remained in his head, ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... drums, conch-shells, and other instruments, and shrieking and howling at the top of their voices. After this, the principal chiefs entered the houses of the late chief's wives, armed with a sort of bowstring. With these they proceeded deliberately to kill the unfortunate women, one after the other, till about twenty were thus executed. The new chief's mother had before died, or she would have been murdered ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a pair of peculiar goat-skin bellows, provided with wooden nozzles tipped with iron. A catgut bowstring drills for boring holes, and screw-drills for cutting threads, hammers, and an anvil. A rude but ingenious forge is constructed out of a few handfuls of stiff mud, and, building a charcoal fire, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... said his father. "And poor Charity is getting nothing more than women have always got who've dared to ask for their own way. They used to throw 'em to the lions, or bowstring 'em in the harems. And in the days of real chivalry they burned 'em at the stake or locked 'em up in convents or castles. But don't you worry, Jim, Charity has you for a champion and she's mighty lucky. Go on and fight the muckers and the muck-rakers, and don't let the reporters or the preachers ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... conveyed to her, she summoned to her presence three black slaves, belonging to the corps of the bostanjis, or gardeners, who also served as executioners, when a person of rank was to be subjected to the process of bowstring, or when any dark deed was to be accomplished in silence and with caution. Terrible appendages to the household of Ottoman sultans were the black slaves belonging to that corps—like snakes, they insinuated themselves, noiselessly and ominously into the presence ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... constructed entirely of bamboos so lashed and braced together as to be capable of sustaining the weight of a continuous column of men, two abreast, over its entire length. It was fashioned upon the principle of the bowstring girder, and was considerably longer than was actually needed—which Jack accounted for by the fact that the Spaniards had been allowed no opportunity to gauge the actual width of the river, and had ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... saddle, ornamented with a huge pair of well-stuffed saddle-bags, and holsters revealing the stocks of a brace of immense pistols, the horse with its obstinate mouth thrust out, and the bridle drawn as tight as a bowstring! its ears laid sullenly down, as if, like the Corporal, it complained of going to Yorkshire, and its long thick tail, not set up in a comely and well-educated arch, but hanging sheepishly down, as if resolved that its buttocks should ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... arrow went straight to the mark. But here the chief, the old White Bear, interposed and said that it was necessary that they should have long claws in order to be able to climb trees. "One of us has already died to furnish the bowstring, and if we now cut off our claws we shall all have to starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth and claws which nature has given us, for it is evident that man's weapons were ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... the Mohar had bent his bow, and came so near to the king's chariot that he could be heard exclaiming in a hoarse voice, as he let the bowstring snap, "Now I will reckon with you—thief! robber! My bride is your wife, but with this arrow I will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... him a retinue; and in the course of the pursuit of the game on foot, he came to the Missa mountain. A certain devo, assuming the form of an elk, stationed himself there, grazing; the sovereign descried him, and saying 'it is not fair to shoot him standing,' sounded his bowstring, on which the elk fled to the mountain. The king gave chase to the flying animal, and, on reaching the spot where the priests were, the thero Mahindo came within sight of the monarch; but the metamorphosed deer ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... self-defense one must differ from a man of such intense and overweening personality), it must yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out of that primitive silence and solitude in which only the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in contemporary British literature is there another writer whose bowstring ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... with his own plumage. To meet our contentions Sir Edward cites our own seizures and our own court decisions. It remains to be seen whether out of strands plucked from the mane and tail of the British lion we can fashion a bowstring which will give effective momentum to a counterbolt launched in the general direction of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... around the neck and then under his left arm. The ends of the arrows were thus convenient to his right hand, and with one sweeping circular motion he could draw them from the quiver and fit them to the bowstring. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... replied that he had been brought up in Constantinople, where they did things in that way; and that, except for the trifling obstacle of the law, there was no particular reason for not strangling Mr. Feist with the English equivalent for a bowstring, since he had printed a disagreeable story about Miss Donne, and was, besides, a very offensive sort of person in appearance and manner. There had always been a certain directness about Logotheti's ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... refusest my fair proffer," said the prince, "the provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the presence as a ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... sun-rays alighted upon him: the glory of the king of day crowded blazing upon the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of the bowstring, and Photogen darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She fell down in utter darkness. All around her was a flaming furnace. In despair ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... instrument of music Of this truth is an example. Lightly touched, it breathes but sweetness, Discord, when 't is roughly handled. 'T is not well to send an arrow To such heights, that in discharging The strong tension breaks the bowstring, Or the bow itself is fractured. These two simple illustrations Are sufficiently adapted To my purpose, of advising Means of cure both mild and ample. You must take a middle course, All extremes must be abandoned. Gentle but ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... grained, and the other much softer. Of the former he cut a stick of about a foot long and an inch round, and pointed at both ends. In the other he made a small hole. Then he unstrung one end of a bowstring, twisted it once round the stick, and strung it again. Then he put one point of the stick in the hole in the other piece of wood, which he laid upon the ground. Round the hole he crumbled into dust some dry fungus. On the upper ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... muscle in Jean's body became as taut as a bowstring. He hunched a little forward, as if about to leap upon the other, and strike him down. And then, all at once, he relaxed. His hands unclenched. And ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... inspiration.' Still if he had been as thoroughly skilled as he professed to have been, he should have shown himself a humane as well as an innovating sovereign. Those who assisted him in his reforms, he rewarded with the bowstring. His character was blackened by ingratitude, an instinctive vice in oriental rulers. Obstinate as he was suspicious, deceitful as he was cunning, he could not rule his own passions, much less could he control the corrupt morals of his people. He was to an extraordinary degree avaricious, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... port of the castle (to which a steep ascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guard soon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingering bowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected march ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... much more readily accept "considerations of state" as a reason for Mr. Motley's removal. Considerations of state have never yet failed the axe or the bowstring when a reason for the use of those convenient implements was wanted, and they are quite equal to every emergency which can arise in a republican autocracy. But for the very reason that a minister is absolutely in the power of his government, the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... suspending the law until his sovereign could be assured of the inevitable consequences of enforcing it. The pacha of a Turkish despot, who had allowed himself this latitude for the interests of his master, might, indeed, have reckoned on the bowstring. But the example of Mendoza, the prudent viceroy of Mexico who adopted this course in a similar crisis, and precisely at the same period, showed its propriety under existing circumstances. The ordinances were ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... my son, that thou pullest not the long bow ere the bowstring be twisted, or ever the arrow be at hand—send not in thy bill ere the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his three nights' profits. For this he received L195 17s. and for the copy he had L100. People probably attended, as they attend modern representations of legitimate drama, rather from a sense of duty, than in the hope of pleasure. The heroine originally had to speak two lines with a bowstring round her neck. The situation produced cries of murder, and she had to go off the stage alive. The objectionable passage was removed, but Irene was on the whole a failure, and has never, I imagine, made another ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... big Dog in camp. He glanced around and would have run, but the tramp was too quick for him and grabbed him by the collar. "Oh, no you don't; hold on, sonny. I'll fix you so you'll do as you're told." He cut the bowstring from its place, and violently throwing Yan down, he tied his feet so that they had about eighteen ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... apparent, for another of Drake's companions, being desirous to show the third Indian a specimen of the English valour and dexterity, attempted, likewise, to shoot an arrow, but drawing it with his full force, burst the bowstring; upon which the Indians, who were unacquainted with their other weapons, imagined him disarmed, followed the company, as they were walking negligently down towards their boat, and let fly their arrows, aiming particularly at Winter, who had the bow in his hand. He, finding himself wounded in the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... did he obtain the bowstring? Whence a cord to match the weapon? Sinews from the elk of Hiisi, And the hempen cord of Lempo. Thus at length the bow was finished. And the stock was quite completed, 40 And the bow was fair to gaze on, And ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... who died strangely, swiftly, conveniently, as soon so he had wearied of her, and a new favourite had begun to exercise her influence. Such things are done in the East—dynasties annihilated, kingdoms overthrown, poison or bowstring used at will, to gratify a profligate's passion, or pay for a spendthrift's extravagances. Such things were done when that man was Governor of Madras as were never done by an Englishman in India before his time. He went there fettered by no prejudices—he ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... I might. But I was filled with longing to be gathered to the company of the Divine ones, and I knew that I had no evil in me, and desired to do only the thing that is just. Therefore, having with so much labour drawn the bowstring to my ear, I was fain to let fly the shaft. "Lead on," I cried with a loud voice; "lead on, thou holy ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... confiscated the property of Li's family, that his wife had died of sorrow, in misery, and that his son, Li, having taken the liberty to complain of the glorious emperor's severity, suffered death by the bowstring, as is proper and ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... his telescope, set his rifle upright on the moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he is drawing on the bowstring. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... mighty arrows like unto a flight of locusts, then wilt thou repent of thine own folly! Bethink thyself of what thou wilt feel when that warrior armed with the Gandiva, blowing his conch-shell and with gloves reverberating with the strokes of his bowstring will again and again pierce thy breast with his shafts. And when Bhima will advance towards thee, mace in hand and the two sons of Madri range in all directions, vomiting forth the venom of their wrath, thou wilt then experience pangs of keen regret ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thou!) Dost daily bend thy loyal brow Before our King—our Asia's treasure! Nutmeg of Comfort: Rose of Pleasure!— And bearest as many kicks and bruises As the said Rose and Nutmeg chooses; Thy head still near the bowstring's borders. And but left on till further orders— Thro' London streets with turban fair, And caftan floating to the air, I saunter on, the admiration Of this short-coated population— This sewed-up race—this buttoned nation— Who while they boast their laws so free Leave not ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the sheep approached he drew his bow and aimed for the leader's heart, but his fingers could not loose their grip upon the arrow, and the sheep passed by unharmed. Bilh Ahati{COMBINING BREVE}ni scrambled up over the rim of the canon and ran to get ahead of them again, but the bowstring would not leave his fingers as they passed. A third effort, and a fourth, to kill the game brought the same result. Bilh Ahati{COMBINING BREVE}ni cursed himself and the sheep, but ceased suddenly, for whom should he see but four gods, Yebichai, appear before him, who had transformed ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... gives this bow to thee, wherewith in the chase striking many a beast he had luck in his aim: since never did the arrow leap wandering from the curved horn or speed vainly from his hand; for as often as the inevitable bowstring rang, so often he brought down his prey in air or thicket; wherefore to thee, O Phoebus, he brings this Lyctian weapon as an offering, having wound it round ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... The fatal bowstring was not in his thought, When, breaking truce, he so unjustly fought; Made the world tremble with a numerous host, And of undoubted victory ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... never-enough-to-be-lamented lock of hair. Other danger awaits him, for "to be strangled was not much better than to be starved; and certainly with half a dozen highly respectable females clinging round his neck, he was not reminded, for the first time in his life, what a domestic bowstring is an affectionate woman." He is next joined by an "influential personage," who informs him that he is in Hubbabub (London)—the largest city, not only that exists, but that ever did exist, and the capital of the Island of Vraibleusia, the most famous island, not only that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... There is no foreshaft. The sting-ray spine, which makes an excellent natural projectile point, was let directly into the split end of the cane, and was secured by cord binding (see "Haftings"). Instead of the usual nock in the butt end of the shaft for a bowstring, there is a cuplike depression (fig. 1). This suggests, of course, that this may have been a dart for use with a thrower or atlatl. Although that weapon is unreported in the Spanish sources on central and northern Baja California, dart-throwers were reported by Spanish explorers for ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey
... rage and pain he bored in. He had but one chance—to get this shadow in his gorilla-like arms. He lacked mental flexibility. An idea, getting into his head, stuck; it was not adjustable. Like an arrow sped from the bowstring, it had to fulfill its destiny. It never occurred to him to take to his heels, to get space between himself and this enemy he had so woefully underestimated. Ten feet, and he might have been able to whirl, draw his ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... they hae ta'en brave Hobbie Noble, Wi's ain bowstring they band him sae; But his gentle heart was ne'er sae sair, As when his ain five bound him on ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... inflicting suffering upon some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it but wretches condemned to death. And, even then, when these had "had enough," they were always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or bowstring, left for their use at the ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... Gurth, get thee another dog, and should the keeper dare to touch it, I will mar his archery; the curse of a coward on my head, if I strike not off the forefinger of his right hand!—he shall draw bowstring no more.—I crave your pardon, my worthy guests. I am beset here with neighbours that match your infidels, Sir Knight, in Holy Land. But your homely fare is before you; feed, and let welcome make ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... himself in a manly strain, soothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs. Pritchard, the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck. The audience cried out "Murder! Murder!" She several times attempted to speak; but in vain. At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive.' This passage was afterwards struck out, and she was carried ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Khasi bow (ka ryntieh) is of bamboo, and is about 5 feet in height. The longest bow in use is said to be about the height of a man, the average height amongst the Khasis being about about 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 4 inches. The bowstring is of split bamboo, the bamboos that are used being u spit, u shken, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... prognostications! never has any one been so beset and impeded by a powerful combination of political and moneyed confederates! never has any one in any country where the administration of justice has risen above the knife or the bowstring, been so lawlessly and shamelessly tried and condemned by rivals and enemies, without hearing, without defence, without the forms of law and justice! History has been ransacked to find examples of tyrants sufficiently odious to illustrate ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... turn, all of them together, are to the spoken words, or, rather than that, it should be said, to the thoughts and emotions of which those articulate sounds are but the winged symbols, as to the barbed and feathered arrows are the bowstring. How essential every external of this kind is, as affording some medium of communication between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated upon the instant by the rough and ready argument of the reductio ad absurdum. Without insisting, for example, upon the impossibility ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... on a revolving dome ribbed with millions of lights, and that all his wondrous thoughts stood embodied hundreds of feet below his tiny swinging plank, shouting together in his honour, when something cracked inside his temples like an overstrained bowstring, the glittering dome broke inward, and he was alone in the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... added the confident Giraffe. "And just make up your minds I'm going to do that same stunt yet. Why, half a dozen times already I've been pretty close to getting fire; but something always seemed to happen just at the last minute. Once my bowstring sawed through. Another time the plaguey stick burst. Then Bumpus had to fall all over me just when I felt sure the spark was going to come in the tinder. And the last time, you may remember, when I sang out that ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... on in the ellipse, and another man fitted an arrow to his bowstring, and as he rode ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two treenails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The bowstring consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same size for going over the knobs at the end ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... upon Apiarian laws would be a strange Utopia! the bowstring would be used there as unmercifully as it is in the seraglio, to say nothing of the summary mode of bringing down the population to the means of subsistence. But this is straying from the subject. The consequences of defective order are indeed frightful, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... who offend him. A black-vizarded ruffian (whom we will unmask), who signs the forged name of Trefoil, is at present one of the chief bravoes and bullies in our contemporary's establishment. He is the eunuch who brings the bowstring, and strangles at the order of the Day. We can convict this cowardly slave, and propose to do so. The charge which he has brought against Lord Bangbanagher, because he is a Liberal Irish peer, and against the Board of Poor Law Guardians of the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... backward received injuries from which he soon expired. Considerable execution was also done by the Turkish arrows, with which portions of the masts and spars bristled. Several of these missiles came from the bow of the Pacha himself, who was probably the last commander-in-chief who ever drew a bowstring in European battle. But on the whole the fire of the Christians was greatly superior to that of the Turks. Twice the deck of Ali was swept clear of defenders, and twice the Spaniards rushed on board and advanced as far as the mainmast. At that point they were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... yokes of oxen, Belisarius, placing himself on the ramparts, ordered the garrison to allow the towers to advance unmolested by the machines to within bow-shot. Then taking up a long bow, which might have graced the hand of Robin Hood, and choosing two shafts of a yard in length, he drew the bowstring to his ear, and shot his shaft at the tower. The Gothic captain, who was directing its movements from the summit, had trusted too much to the workmanship of his Milan armour. The fabric was not equal to that of Byzantium. The shaft pierced him to the heart; he tottered a moment on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... criminal act of disloyalty. The life and liberty of Chosroes were saved, but he was reduced to the necessity of imploring aid or refuge in some foreign land; and the implacable Bindoes, anxious to secure an unquestionable title, hastily returned to the palace, and ended, with a bowstring, the wretched existence of the son of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of bright eyes peered down upon the cavaliers, attracted by the shouting and laughter! Now and then some person would be a little late in attempting to cross before him; then with what grace Demedes would spur after him, his bow and bowstring for whip! And how the spectators shrieked with delight when he overtook the culprit, and wore the flowers out flogging him! And when a balcony was low, and illuminated with a face fairer than common, how the gallant ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... it?" he cried angrily. "Find out, John, and he shall have a bowstring about his back. Point out the man who stripped you, my little lad," he continued, ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... had you seen her With that high, laughing, turbulent head of hers Thrown backward, and the bowstring at her ear, Or sitting at the fire with those grave eyes Full of good counsel as it were with wine, Or when love ran through all the lineaments ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... which the bowstrings could be tied after the bow was all wound. The stock of our crossbow was cut out of a board of soft wood 1 inch thick to as near the shape of a gun as we could get it. A hole was drilled through the muzzle end to receive the bow, and then the bowstring was tied fast. Along the upper edge of the barrel a V-shaped channel was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... to make, you will think that I am describing Turkish, not English revolutions; and will cast your eye upwards to see if my letter is not dated from Constantinople. Indeed, violent as the changes have been, there has been no bloodshed; no Grand Vizier has had a cravat made of a bowstring, no Janizaries have taken upon them to alter the succession, no Grand Signior is deposed—only his Sublime Highness's dignity has been a little impaired. Oh! I forgot; I ought not to frighten you; you will interpret all these fine allusions, and think ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... get out the stresses in girders of the bowstring form, the author was not satisfied with the common formulae for the diagonal braces, which, owing to the difficulty of apportioning the stresses amongst five members meeting in one point, were to a large extent based on an assumption as to the course taken by the stresses. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various |
