"Scimitar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of warriors, crowned with success, began to fight furiously, and quickly cutting his enemy's bow in twain as also his flagstaff which he caused to fall down, pierced his antagonist's horses, and charioteer also with five arrows. Then throwing aside his bow Arjuna took his quiver, and taking out a scimitar and sending forth a loud shout, leaped from his own chariot upon that of his foe. And standing there with perfect fearlessness he seized Drupada as Garuda seizeth a huge snake after agitating the waters of the ocean. At the sight of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... I was Christian, that is white and Infidel, So old Abdullah took me in his tent And stripping off my white man's clothes Painted me with dye made from the chestnut hulls, Laughing the while about the potency of juice That would prove armour 'gainst some zealot's scimitar. Four camels made our caravan And these we also used for "props." When we played a Morocco town The chieftain met us at the hamlet's edge Asked of Abdullah what his mission there, Then let us enter He leading our caravan to the chieftain's hut, Where we sat upon the sand The thirty odd of us ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... ceiling of which an occasional lamp threw a gleam upon some Eastern arms hung up against the wall. This passage led to the armory, a room of moderate dimensions, but hung with rich contents. Many an inlaid breastplate—many a Mameluke scimitar and Damascus blade—many a gemmed pistol and pearl embroided saddle might there be seen, though viewed in a subdued and quiet light. All seemed hushed and still, and shrouded in what had the reputation of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... everything, as well as direct everything, upon the northern frontier of Bulgaria; and only just allowed the fifteen days' "notice to quit" to expire, before he showed Russia and the world that the Turks had a general, and that with a general they were still soldiers, as when the blazing scimitar of Orchan first flashed upon Europe, or Byzantium shook before the thunder of the artillery of Mohammed II. They were still worthy of their father, Osman, the "Bone-breaker;" and, in hand-to-hand combat, an overmatch for the boors of Russia, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... flinch when t'ward the Christian west The fell invasion of the Saracen Headed its course with crimson scimitar; Supplanting the mild precepts of the Cross With those of ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming scimitar-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye—for there was no twilight, and this night no moon—the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... fought the far infinitude, a toiler Like to himself and me, for things that are Buried from the eyes alone Of men whose sight is made of stone, And led him out in ecstasy, Over the dim boundary By the pale gleam of a scimitar. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... too quietly modest for his own favor, fought like a lion in this pitch of battle, making all the faint-hearted around him ashamed to do ill with such an example contiguous. General Bartlett, keen-faced and active like a fiery scimitar, was leading his division as if he were an immortal! He was closest at hand in the most gallant episodes, and held at nightfall a bundle of captured battle-flags. But Griffin, tall and slight, was the master-genius of the Fifth corps, to which by right he has temporarily succeeded. He led the charge ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... drew; but they fled in the greatest confusion imaginable; the only stand any of them made was on our right, where three of them stood, and, by signs, called the rest to come back to them, having a kind of scimitar in their hands, and their bows hanging at their backs. Our brave commander, without asking any body to follow him, galloped up close to them, and with his fusil knocked one of them off his horse, killed the second with his pistol, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... to my slender side The pistol and the scimitar, And in my maiden flower and pride Am come to share the tasks of war. And yonder stands my fiery steed, That paws the ground and neighs to go, My charger of the Arab breed,— I took him from the ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... mirror. Under the oldest and thickest of these trees, reclining on cushions, sat my father; my mother was at his feet, and I, childlike, amused myself by playing with his long white beard which descended to his girdle, or with the diamond-hilt of the scimitar attached to his girdle. Then from time to time there came to him an Albanian who said something to which I paid no attention, but which he always answered in the same tone of voice, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was enter'd: first one column made Its sanguinary way good—then another; The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade Clash'd 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid: Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot The madden'd Turks their ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... with such just strength, that the arrow finding its way through his cuirass, stuck in his ribs under the breast. This stroke was so violent, that it made him give back, and set one knee to the ground, upon which the man ran up with his drawn scimitar, thinking to dispatch him, and had done it, if Peucestes and Limnaeus had not interposed, who were both wounded, Limnaeus mortally, but Peucestes stood his ground, while Alexander killed the barbarian. But this did not free him from danger; for besides many other wounds, at last ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Saladin; and tucking up the sleeve of his gown, showed his arm, thin indeed and spare, but which constant exercise had hardened into a mass consisting of nought but bone, brawn, and sinew. He unsheathed his scimitar, a curved and narrow blade, which glittered not like the swords of the Franks, but was, on the contrary, of a dull blue colour, marked with ten millions of meandering lines, which showed how anxiously the metal had been welded by the armourer. ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... 7th of September, a great battle was fought. Saladin and his brother had almost defeated the two Religious Orders, and the gallant French knight, Jacques d'Avesne, after losing his leg by a stroke from a scimitar, fought bravely on, calling on the English King, until he fell overpowered by numbers. Coeur de Lion and Guillaume des Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all sides, and remained masters of the field. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... "O king, having reached king Vrishaparva's hermitage, while those fearful warriors were living in various wonderful woods, Vrikodara roaming at pleasure, with bow in hand and armed with a scimitar, found that beautiful forest, frequented by gods and Gandharvas. And then he beheld (some) lovely spots in the Himalayan mountains, frequented by Devarshis and Siddhas and inhabited by hosts of Apsaras, resounded here and there with (the warbling of) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fireman scraped the iron floor for his last two shovelfuls of coal-dust and the train wheezed wearily into the dark station, Grim began to busy himself in mysterious ways. Part of his own costume consisted of a short, curved scimitar attached to an embroidered belt— the sort of thing that Arabs wear for ornament rather than use. He took it off and, groping in the dark, helped Mabel put it on, ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... palace! He girded his sword about him; it was a scimitar of beautiful workmanship, and the scabbard was incrusted with precious stones.... From the court he passed into many wonderful rooms, one leading out of the other; there were rich carpets on the marble floors, and fountains played softly in the centre, the walls were inlaid with ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... the Princess. It was impossible for LALLA ROOKH to refuse;—he had never before looked half so animated, and when he spoke of the Holy Valley his eyes had sparkled she thought like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted; and while FADLADEEN sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... his defeat, pale Reschid speaks. Among the dead we mourned a thousand Greeks. Lone from the field the Pasha fled afar, And, musing, wiped his reeking scimitar; His two dead steeds upon the sands were flung, And on their sides their ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... never forget the night he came down as the Char of Persia, I think he called it—a sort of Eastern King it was. He had the big paper knife in his hand, and 'Mind, Dorcas,' he says, 'you'll have to be very respectful. This is my specially sharpened scimitar, and it's off with your head if I'm at all displeased with you!' Miss Cynthia, she was what they call an Apache, or some such name—a Frenchified sort of cut-throat, I take it to be. A real sight she looked. You'd never ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... just returned. He was accosted by his mother and sister, pale with fatigue, shame, and rage. They told him what had taken place, with cries and tears, and Kamco added, fixing her distracted eyes upon him, "My son! my son! my soul will enjoy no peace till Kormovo and Kardiki destroyed by thy scimitar, will no longer exist to bear ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... day, deadly was the combat, as the Moors and Franks crashed together, shouting their cries, invoking their gods or saints, wielding with utmost courage sword, lance, javelin, scimitar, or dagger. Blades flashed, lances were splintered, helms were cloven in that terrible fight of heroes. Each of the Twelve Peers did mighty feats of arms. Roland himself slew the nephew of King Marsile, who had promised to bring Roland's head to his uncle's ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... the walls, the breach must be clambered through, and if the citadel be strong, the rash onset will be repulsed with heavy loss. But Hope dotes on youth. The young are her flock, her fold, her children. Into the hands of her children she puts the scimitar of courage, and bids them go forth again. Let us suppose you have been cast down your ladder, and have little but your courage. It may be necessary to leave your pleasant little town and seek employment where men are used as machines—in the great cities. Such a fate is, indeed, ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... high his broad scimitar, Ridley is riding his fleet-footed grey, Hedley and Howard there, Wandale and Windermere,— Lock the door, Lariston, hold them at bay. Why dost thou smile, noble Elliot of Lariston? Why do the joy-candles gleam in thine eye? Thou bold Border ranger ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... discussing it is a want of resistance, a want of something difficult to unravel, and something dark to illumine. To agitate such a question is to beat the air with a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar; it is a prostitution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man say, I have a good place, and I do not choose to lose it, this mode of arguing upon the Catholic question I can well understand; but that any human being with an understanding two degrees ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... Sikh writer states of Guru Govind, the founder of the militant Sikh confederacy: "He appeared as the tenth Avatar (incarnation of Vishnu). He established the Khalsa, his own sect, and by exhibiting singular energy, leaving the hair on his head, and seizing the scimitar, he smote every wicked person." [302] As is well known, no Sikh may cut his hair, and one of the five marks of the Sikh is the kanga or comb, which he must always carry in order to keep his hair in proper order. A proverb states that ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... eye on that head. At the instant the sharp crack of the rifle rang out the frightful object vanished, and the long body broke into fierce writhings. Jack had clipped off the head as neatly as if with the blow of a scimitar, the bullet shattering the neck just below, and ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... whether he had a species of fit or was simply trying to follow through. When restored to perpendicular was found to have ball deeply embedded in his person. Disqualified for handling. MEHMED (a left-hander; uses clubs with scimitar-shaped shafts) puts his drive over short slip into the club-house kitchen. C.P., after converting Aisne Bunker into mine crater, picks up. M., hopelessly bunkered in the Irish Stew, also picks up. F. holes out in a stealthy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 - 1917 Almanack • Various
... lean-flanked Marwari or Cabul horses as though they waited to swing into a parade, the march past. The sowars Barlow had seen in the town were in front of him, riding four abreast, and at a command from their leader, opened up and formed a scimitar-shaped band, their horses' noses toward the river. As he came close Barlow saw Kassim in a group of officers, and Hunsa, a soldier on either side of him, was standing free and unshackled in front of the Commander. Save for the clanking of a bit, or the clang ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... themselves, and are regally fed and tended from birth. No other bees get such fine food as they get, or live such a high and luxurious life. By consequence they are larger and longer and sleeker than their working sisters. And they have a curved sting, shaped like a scimitar, while the others have a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... affair, H.M. sloop Lively having captured a smuggling craft (the Admiral Hood) off the Goodwin Sands. He attended the examination of the smugglers before the magistrates at Rochester, attired in a fancy costume, and having a small scimitar suspended from his neck, by a massive gold chain. He defended one of the men, who, despite his advocacy, was convicted. He then offered himself as a witness, swore that he had seen the whole transaction, that there was no smuggling, and that the Lively ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... of the window above the writing-table swept a silvern beam of moonlight. It poured, searchingly, upon the fur-clad figure swaying by the table; cutting through the darkness of the room like some huge scimitar, to end in a pallid pool about the woman's shadow on the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... intricate play of light and shade, and the irregular, contorted, honeycombed surface which produces it; craggy, scarred, indented mountains, "like an old lion's cheek-teeth";[79] old towns with huddled roofs and towers picked out "black and crooked," like "fretwork," or "Turkish verse along a scimitar"; old walls, creviced and crannied, intertwined with creepers, and tenanted by crossing swarms of ever-busy flies,—such things are the familiar commonplace of Browning's sculpturesque fancy. His metrical movements are full of the same joy in "fretwork" effects—verse-rhythm and ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... letters, excelling in that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle's review of "St. Elmo," or Gail Hamilton's criticism of "The Story of Avis," while Mrs. Rollins, in the Critic, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the public that his "solemn ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... All-powerful weapon of a sneering devil, English satire leaves a deadly poison in the wound it makes. Arabella chose to show her power like the sultan who, to prove his dexterity, cut off the heads of unoffending beings with his own scimitar. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... seemed more nervous than any one else; he rocked himself gently on his cushion, as if churning the milk of desire into the butter of wise words. Suddenly he turned to the sheikh on his left, a handsome man of middle age, who wore a scimitar tucked into a gold-embroidered ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... she stood curved the coast, glistening like a scimitar, and the strip of yellow beach which divided the narrow bay from the open sea; to the right, thrust out into the sheen of silver, lay the spit of sand narrowing the inlet, its edges scalloped with lace foam, its extreme point dominated by the grim tower of Barnegat Light; aloft, high ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... give me my life again; but I can bring you to life if you are killed." Now Chumman Basa had come quite near, and seemed very pleasant, so thought Prince Majnun; but when he was speaking to Majnun, he drew his scimitar and cut off the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... bright scimitar edge sunk behind Nine-Mile Point he arose with a beating heart. Making his blankets into a bundle, he took his way once more around the strip of beach, his moccasined feet ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... on the difficulty and danger of an abduction, which an Ottoman scimitar might any day during this memorable siege render unnecessary, we shall restrict ourselves to declaring positively that the correspondence of Saint-Mars from 1669 to 1680 gives us no ground for supposing that the governor of Pignerol had any great prisoner of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... pealed with sound, the "Allah il Allah!" of the fanatical Arabs; suddenly the startled eyes of the imperialists saw the rugged rocks bursting, as it seemed, into life; suddenly a horde of dusky warriors poured down upon them with scimitar and javelin, surrounding them quickly on all sides, cutting and slashing their way deeply into the disordered ranks. The scattered troops, stricken with dismay, fell in hundreds. In their surprise and confusion they became easy victims to their agile foes, and in a ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... a salmon-trout. Up he went, from a brusque explosion of ripples and foam—up into the gray of the morning from out the gray of the water: scales all gleaming, hackles all a-bristle; a sudden flash of silver, a sweep as of a scimitar in gray smoke, with a splash, a turmoil, an abrupt burst of troubled sound that stabbed through the silence of the morning, and in a single instant dissipated all the placid ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... of faultless features, I shall regard myself fortunate, indeed, since she it is that hath ever dwelt in my heart." Hearing these words of that incoherent braggart, Nala in anger desired to cut off his head with a scimitar. With a smile, however, though his eyes were red in anger, king Nala said, "Let us play. Why do you speak so now? Having vanquished me, you can say anything you like." Then the play commenced between Pushkara and Nala. ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... thickets that fringed its margin, until the storm of battle should have passed over. In this lurking-place, however, he was discovered by a common soldier named Martin Hurtado, who, without recognizing his person, instantly attacked him. The prince defended himself with his scimitar, until Hurtado, being joined by two of his countrymen, succeeded in making him prisoner. The men, overjoyed at their prize (for Abdallah had revealed his rank, in order to secure his person from violence), conducted him to their general, the count of Cabra. The latter received the royal captive ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Lord of Tartary, I'd wear a robe of beads, White, and gold, and green they'd be— And clustered thick as seeds; And ere should wane the morning-star, I'd don my robe and scimitar, And zebras seven should draw my car Through Tartary's ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... O'Brien, where was O'Brien! If she had not been with O'Brien, where had she been? With a sort of senile and passionate suspicion he groped his way to the dark back parts of the mansion, and eventually found a servants' entrance that opened on to the garden. The moon with her scimitar had now ripped up and rolled away all the storm-wrack. The argent light lit up all four corners of the garden. A tall figure in blue was striding across the lawn towards the study door; a glint of moonlit silver on his facings picked him ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the wedded rivers. One long bar Of purple cloud, on which the evening star Shone like a jewel on a scimitar, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... want you to go to Stillwater and give Doctor Gilman some souvenir of Turkey from me. Just to show him I've no hard feelings. He wouldn't accept money, but he can't refuse a present. I want it to be something characteristic of the country, Like a prayer rug, or a scimitar, or an ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... am dead, cover us with the same cloak." And the nurse entreated and besought her, but she could not move her, and when she saw that she did but vex her mistress, she sat down and wept in silence. Then Pantheia took the scimitar, that had been ready for her so long, and drew it across her throat, and dropped her head upon her husband's breast and died. And the nurse cried bitterly, but she covered the two with one cloak as ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... he cited, wielding his staff as if it had been the scimitar of the Moor. "Hold, for your lives! For Christian shame put ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of good faith. After this they met, and Syennesis gave Cyrus large sums in aid of his army; while Cyrus presented him with the customary royal gifts—to wit, a horse with a gold bit, a necklace of gold, a gold bracelet, and a gold scimitar, a Persian dress, and lastly, the exemption of his territory from further pillage, with the privilege of taking back the slaves that had been seized, wherever they might chance to come ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... was robed in an elephant's hide, dried and withered, confined at the waist with a belt composed of the hands of the giants whom she had slain in war: two dead bodies formed her earrings, and her necklace was of bleached skulls. Her four arms supported a scimitar, a noose, a trident, and a ponderous mace. She stood with one leg on the breast of her husband, Shiva, and she rested the other on his thigh. Before the idol lay the utensils of worship, namely, dishes for the offerings, lamps, jugs, incense, ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... returned privately to the palace, and went directly to her apartment. There, to his extreme grief, he found her in the company of a slave whom she plainly loved better than himself. Yielding to the first outburst of his indignation, the unfortunate monarch drew his scimitar, and with one rapid ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... innocence, bewailed his wife and children, and tried pitifully to avert his fate. The genius, with his raised scimitar, waited till he had finished, but was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... fiery scimitar out of the darkness, and twice again it careened at the vitals of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... the Gulf of Saros, is the peninsula of Gallipoli, where a critical phase of the war was fought. It is somewhat like the blade of a scimitar, covering the entrance to the Sea of Marmora. Between this strip of land and the coast of Asia Minor is a narrow strait, the outer mouth of which is called the Dardanelles, the inner gateway being ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... unfortunate Siroco, and have taken from them the talisman given them by their father. You have kept my son from me, but I have found out your hiding-place and swear by the Holy Prophet to punish your crime. The stroke of my scimitar is swifter than ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... attention was suddenly called by the screams of three women, who took up their children and ran off in great consternation. Soon afterward a man made his appearance. He was of a middle age, unarmed, except with a whaddie, or wooden scimitar, and came up to us seemingly with careless confidence. We made much of him, and gave him some biscuit; and he in return presented us with a piece of gristly fat, probably of whale. This I tasted; but watching an opportunity to spit it out when ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... his station in the centre. Mahomet had drawn up his army in a similar manner; but, with a strong body of reserve, he occupied an elevation well defended besides by vast iron chains, which surrounded his impenetrable guard.[37] In one hand he held a useless scimitar, in the other the Koran. The attack was made by the Christian centre against that of the Mahometans; and immediately the two wings moved against those of the enemy. The African centre, which consisted of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... the redoubt, I was anxious to be provided with some more efficient weapon than my dirk, and that I would feel very much obliged to him if he would lend me one of his swords. This he at once did, bidding me take my choice, and I thereupon selected a beautiful Turkish scimitar, the curved blade of which, inlaid with a delicate scroll pattern in gold, was as keen as a razor. Tucking this under my arm, and thanking him duly for his kindness, I next hurried away to the armourer, and wheedled him out of a pair of ship's pistols, together ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... his sabre to despatch the man; Whyna was rash enough to seize the king's arm, and prevent the blow, at this his rage redoubled, his eyes glowed like live coals, and turning to her with the look of a demon, he caught her by the hair, and dragging her across his feet, lifted up his scimitar in the act to strike off her head. I sickened with horror at the danger she was in, but I thought he would not strike. I had no weapon, but if he had done so, I would have revenged her death, even if I had ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... we go, soon to approach the tragic theatre. A crack of the whip, a stretch of the leaders, and now, suddenly, the whole valley comes in view! Before us are the great waters of Minas; yonder Blomidon bursts upon the sight; and below, curving like a scimitar around the edge of the Basin, and against the distant cliffs that shut out the stormy Bay of Fundy, is the Acadian land—the idyllic meadows of Grand-Pre lie at ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... read over to the emperor he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up the several particulars. He first called for my scimitar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the meantime he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops (who then attended him) to surround me at a distance, with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge; but I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... courses of the storms that circle round the bald crest of old Mount Davidson; cleaves the black curtain of the night with scimitar of flame; rouses the lightnings from their couch of ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... said shortly; "but there was small credit in that when we were fighting for our lives. The most cowardly beast will fight under such circumstances. When you see a Moslem rushing at you, scimitar in hand, and know that if you do not cut him down he will cut you down, you naturally strike as hard and as quickly as you can. You have never liked Gervaise, Rivers. I am sure I don't know why, but you always speak in a contemptuous sort of tone about him. True, it ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... wearing a wet silk bathing-suit, so far as concealing her figure was concerned. Whenever she caught my eye she smiled mischievously. I should have liked to have seen more of her, but an unamiable-looking sentry armed with a large scimitar prevented. ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... common men of leather, the leaders of iron or copper, while many in addition wore coats of mail. Each carried a sword, a battle-axe, and a bow and arrows. Some of the swords were short and curled like a scimitar; others were long and straight, and were wielded with both hands. They wore their hair long and hanging down their shoulders, and for the most part shaved their cheeks and chins, but ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... consigned scores of his predecessors to the bow-string. It would almost appear, as if the despot but elevated a head from the crowd, that he might obtain a more fair and uninterrupted sweep for his scimitar, when he cut it off; only exceeded in his peculiar taste by the king of Dahomy, who is said to ornament the steps of his palace with heads, fresh severed, each returning sun, as we renew the decoration of our apartments from our gay parterres. I make these observations, that I may not be accused ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... time, a fanatic danced out in front of his horse waving a turban to frighten it, and at the same time whirling a wicked looking scimitar around his head. Roberts drew his pistol but the weapon missed fire. The fanatic sprang forward, and it is probable that the career of a future Field Marshal would have ended then and there, had not a lancer spurred his horse in between and ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... and no wonder talks nonsense about them. It is silly to wish three nations had but one neck; but it is ten times more absurd to act as if it was so, which the government has done;—ay, and forgetting, too, that it has not a scimitar large enough to sever that neck, which they have in effect made one. It is past the time, Madam, of making Conjectures. How can one guess whither France and Spain will direct a blow that is in their option? I am rather inclined to think that they will have patience ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... maple trees and the green grass of a tennis court. And if you remember, too, that these are cultivated girls who have all been to the Mariposa high school and can do decimal fractions, you will understand that an Algerian corsair would sharpen his scimitar at the ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... broad sheet of lightning opened the horizon in its whole width, darted like a serpent over the black mass of trees, and like a terrible scimitar divided the heavens and the waters into two parts. Not a breath of wind now disturbed the heavy atmosphere. A deathlike silence oppressed all nature. The soil was humid and glittering with the rain which had ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... uncomfortable. It made a man look around him. On the schooner's port side spread the empty blue of the South Pacific; the tenuous snowdrift of the reef, far out, and the horizon. On the starboard hand, beyond the little space of the anchorage, curved the beach, a pink-white scimitar laid flat. Then the scattering of thatched and stilted huts, the red, corrugated-iron store, residence and godowns of the Dutch trader, the endless Indian-file of coco palms, the abrupt green wall of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... statesman of Great Britain, pointed out the fallacy of this policy. He called it, "Worshipping the scimitar" and predicted that it would invite war instead of preventing it. But the din of the munition factories drowned the voice of protest and the civilized world—yes, the Christian world—went into a prepared war, ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... the Spaniards, stationed beneath the gallows on which the servants had been hanged. The heads of the burghers almost touched the feet of these martyrs. Thirty feet from this group was a block, and on it glittered a scimitar. An executioner was present in case Juanito refused his obedience at ...
— El Verdugo • Honore de Balzac
... beholder then and for ever after. The breeze pipes up. She's doing ten knots now; eleven, twelve; and later on, fifteen. This puts the lee rail under; for she lays over on her side so far that her deck is at a slope of forty-five. Her forefoot cuts through the water like the slash of a scimitar; while her bows throw out two seething waves, the windward one of which breaks into volleying spray a-top and rattles down like hailstones ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... scimitar Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven, To burn before him in the night of battle— 365 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Afghanistan (22. Mr. Blyth, in 'Land and Water,' March, 1867, p. 134, on the authority of Capt. Hutton and others. For the wild Pembrokeshire goats, see the 'Field,' 1869, p. 150.), rear on their hind legs, and then not only butt, but "make a cut down and a jerk up, with the ribbed front of their scimitar-shaped horn, as with a sabre. When the O. cycloceros attacked a large domestic ram, who was a noted bruiser, he conquered him by the sheer novelty of his mode of fighting, always closing at once with his adversary, and catching him across the face and ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... soldier moved; and when Al-Muli was about to approach them to see what was the matter with them, his scimitar dropped from his hand, and ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... for a Mingrelian gentleman, excepting, indeed, for the turban, whose ample folds in alternate colours of red, yellow, brown, and white, encircled his head. His long robe was of dark cloth, cinctured round the waist with his rich sword-belt, from which was suspended a gold-hilted scimitar, encased in a scabbard also enriched with gold: His legs and feet were bare, and had a ponderous look about them, since he suffered from that strange curse of Zanzibar—elephantiasis. His feet were slipped into a pair of watta (Arabic for slippers), with thick soles and a strong leathern band ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... the white deck with his scimitar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... is arrived, has brought a million for himself, two diamond drops worth twelve thousand pounds for the Queen, a scimitar dagger, and other matters, covered with brilliants, for the King, and worth twenty-four thousand more. These baubles are presents from the deposed and imprisoned Mogul, whose poverty can still afford to give such bribes. Lord Clive refused some overplus, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... Book II., 684, &c.) (19) Over whom Marius triumphed. (20) Phoreus and Ceto were the parents of the Gorgons — Stheno, Euryale. and Medusa, of whom the latter alone was mortal, (Hesiod. "Theogony", 276.) Phorcus was a son of Pontus and Gaia (sea and land), ibid, 287. (21) The scimitar lent by Hermes (or Mercury) to Perseus for the purpose; with which had been slain Argus the guardian of Io (Conf. "Prometheus vinctus", 579.) Hermes was born in a cave in Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. (22) The idea seems to be that the earth, bulging at the equator, casts its shadow ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... a quarter to six, when chapel-goers were hurriedly pulling gloves on, he would begin to establish himself in a saddle-backed, ear-flapped easy-chair with "The Christian News" and an ivory paper-knife as long and nearly as deadly as a scimitar. "The Christian News" was a religious weekly of a new type. It belonged to a Mr James Bott, and it gave to God and to the mysteries of religious experience a bright and breezy actuality. Darius's children ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... amongst the crumbling remains of a brick wall that showed signs of having been burnt, which wall he was knocking down with a pick-axe to allow water to flow down an irrigation channel on his garden. Presently a person who wore a turban and was girt about with a large scimitar, rode by, and to him the man showed, and finally presented the stone, which the Saracen placed in ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... or distinguish the separate stroke of its wings. At the same time, the chimney swifts sweep by me like black arrows, on wings apparently as stiff as if made of tin or sheet-iron, now beating the air, now sailing. In some way they suggest winged gimlets. How thin and scimitar-like their wings are! They are certainly ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... each with hand on scimitar, Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war— "The saber of the Sultaun in its sheath Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death, Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle, Bang the loud gong, and raise the shout of battle! This dreary cloud that dims our sovereign's day, Shall from ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... his back. Yet, as you must know, he had been brought up in luxury and reared in a shade, was inexperienced of the world, and had never travelled. The thunder of the great war-drum had never rattled in his ears, nor had the lightning of the trooper's scimitar ever flashed across his eyes:—He had never fallen a captive into the hands of an enemy, nor been overwhelmed amidst ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... picture represented Judith and Holofernes. The beautiful brunette, the Marquise de Chaussey, in a daring costume designed by Maurice, held in her hand a magnificent scimitar, the property of Morlay-La-Branche. She was to pose, raising the curtain, as in the picture ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... signs of encouragement for him to come on, at the same time moving towards him. At last we arrived on the banks of the creek, he on one side, and I on the other. He had a long spear, a womera, and two instruments like the boomerang, but more the shape of a scimitar, with a very sharp edge, having a thick place at the end, roughly carved, for the hand. The gestures he was making were now signs of hostility, and he came fully prepared for war. I then broke a branch of green leaves from a bush, and held it up towards him, inviting him to come across ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... in discussing it is a want of resistance—a want of something difficult to unravel and something dark to illumine. To agitate such a question is to beat the air with a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar: it is a prostitution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man says, 'I have a good place, and I do not choose to lose it,' this mode of arguing upon the Catholic Question I can well understand. But that any human being with an understanding two degrees elevated above that of an Anabaptist ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar? ...
— The Republic • Plato
... body is sixty feet long, twelve feet between the shoulders, and a feathered shaft can lie between my eyebrows. My head is as big as a brewer's vat; my arms are twenty feet long, and I could not stand my ground against the Tsar. The Tsar is strong, and has a mighty host; sword and scimitar wound him not; fire does not burn, water does not drown him. Yet I have a sword which can wound him, but unluckily I could not wield it, and he struck me down. Nevertheless, I will do you good service, and give ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... as she had the appearance and manners of a cultured woman, presenting indeed a figure of great elegance as she stood there with her tall slender form outlined by the moonlight which slanted down through the trees to form a scimitar of light upon the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... through the mist. At last the widow fell fairly asleep, and dreamed that she was married to the Blue Beard of nursery annals, and that on his return from his memorable journey he had caught her in the act of displaying the mysterious cupboard to Miss Letitia. As he waved his scimitar over her head, he seemed unaccountably to assume the form and features of the tutor. In her agitation the poor woman could think of no plea against his severity, except that the cupboard was already crammed with the corpses of his previous wives, and there was no room for her. She ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... forest and somebody up in a tree—not Robin Hood... but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and turban. It is the setting-in of the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... The distant call of a hunting owl, "Qu-wheek, qu-wheek!" sounded through the grave stillness of this last night of May. The moon at her curve's summit floated at peace on the blue surface of the sky, a great closed water-lily. And Martin saw through the trees scimitar-shaped reeds clustering black along the pool's shore. All about him the may-flowers were alight. It was such a night as makes dreams real and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... jewels, and their features bearing the stamp of lofty rank. In their midst stood a young lady of striking beauty, sumptuously attired, and evidently of the highest station, for all paid her reverence, and a guard of armed Moors stood around her, scimitar in hand. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... whole world save a few savage tribes. Ever since the cry of "There is no God but Allah and Mahomet is his prophet" had aroused the Arabian nomads from their age-long slumber, it was as a religious warfare that the contest of the continents revealed itself. After the scimitar had swept the Greek Empire out of Asia Minor and had cut Spain from Christendom, the crusades and the rise of the Spanish kingdoms had gradually beaten it back. But while the Saracen was being slowly but surely driven from the western peninsula, the banner of the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... like sawing through live flesh. Too much blood in the business: after a while the haft of the King's axe got rotten with it, and at a certain last blow gave way and bent like a pulpy stock. He helped himself to a beheaded Mameluke's scimitar, and did his affair with that. Once, twice, thrice, and four times they furrowed that swarm of men; nothing broke their line. Richard himself was only cut in the feet, where he trod on mailed bodies or broken swords; the others (being themselves in mail) were without ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger than an unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She bowed into the heavens ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... and jerkin, perhaps adorned with periwig and cap; not given to church-going, but fond of ale, horse-racing and cuss words; husband of a multiparous wife; owner of a log cabin home or at best a frame cottage which he guarded with gun, pistol and scimitar; his road a bridle path and his means of conveyance a horse or boat ... reading ... by candle light, without spectacles; writing with a goose quill pen; sitting on a rough stool or bench; eating at a crude table from pewter dishes, without ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... after them, upon her young mistress and herself. If there had been any danger, grinning Martha said she would have got down "that thar hooky soord which hung up in gantleman's room,"—meaning the Damascus scimitar with the names of the prophet engraved on the blade and the red velvet scabbard, which Percy Sibwright, Esquire, brought back from his tour in the Levant, along with an Albanian dress, and which he wore with such elegant effect at Lady Mullingar's fancy ball, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... those specially reserved for table use. Both blades and handles have passed through many stages in the gradual evolution from the hunting knife to the cutlery on the modern dinner table. The blades have been narrow and pointed like daggers, and they have been scimitar-shaped, and rounded off at the point. The qualities of the material have changed, too, Sheffield cutlers and those of other places vying with one another. The cutlery trade has long drifted north, although at one time the members of the London Cutlers' Company ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... hath a journey ta'en With twenty vassals in his train, 520 Each armed, as best becomes a man, With arquebuss and ataghan; The chief before, as decked for war, Bears in his belt the scimitar Stained with the best of Arnaut blood, When in the pass the rebels stood, And few returned to tell the tale Of what befell in Parne's vale. The pistols which his girdle bore Were those that once a Pasha wore, 530 Which still, though gemmed and bossed with gold, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... of two scimitar-shaped lancets, placed in a common sheath, with which it slices out a place beneath the skin, large enough to bury it entirely, anchors itself firmly with its hooked proboscis, and in a day or two dies. The abdominal section, however, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... band of red leather covering part of the abdomen, with various divisions, in which they used to carry their rich arms, pistols, knives, &c., now filled with the pipe, pipe-cleaner, britva, a very small scimitar with a bone handle, and a small knife in a sheath. Finally, there is the koporan, a jacket with sleeves of blue cloth, with embroidery on the elbows and back; but ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... of the wanderers poor who knelt on the flints and the sands, When the mighty and merciless Moor was lord of the Lady of Lands. Where the African scimitar flamed, with a swift, bitter death in its kiss, The fathers, unknown and unnamed, found God in cathedrals like this! The glow of His Spirit—the beam of His blessing—made lords of the men Whose food ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... the worship of the naked sword. The country was parcelled out into districts, and in every district was a huge pile of brushwood, serving as a temple to the neighborhood, at the top of which was planted an antique sword or scimitar. On a stated day in each year solemn sacrifices, human and animal, were offered at these shrines; and the warm blood of the victims was carried up from below and poured upon the weapon. The human victims—prisoners ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... transformations at her hands—emerged, clad in chintz and muslin, as sofas and toilet-tables. She hung her curtains on strings, and herself sewed the seams of the parlour carpet, squatting Turk-fashion on the floor, and working away, with a great needle shaped like a scimitar, till the perspiration ran down her face. It was also she who, standing on the kitchen-table, put up the only two pictures they possessed, Ned and Jerry giving opinions on the straightness of her eye, from below: a fancy ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... shown in Fig. 2. The handle of this sword is oval and covered with plaited cord. In making this scimitar, follow the directions as for Fig. 1, except that the handle has to be covered with a round black cord. If it is found difficult to plait the cord on the handle as in the illustration, wind it around in ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the vaporous West The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold Behind the arm of the city, which between; With all the length of domes and minarets, Athwart the splendour, black and crooked runs Like a Turk verse along a scimitar. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... casks, and gulls lazily plying their long scimitar-shaped wings with easy unconcern, as if the limitless ocean was,—what in reality ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... until, as we have said, it was nearly full-grown. He appeared to have no idea of personal danger. Possibly he did not believe the huge playful brute to be capable of mischief. Perhaps he felt confident in the keen edge of his Damascene scimitar, and in the power of his arm to lop off even leonine heads. Whatever may have been the truth on this point, his ease and indifference were evidently not ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... from his post, and confusion had taken possession of the garrison. The noise awakened the master of the mansion, who was first overwhelmed with surprise, but soon recollecting himself, he seized his trusty scimitar, and expeditiously roused his servants, who forthwith attacked the sons of disorder, and with very little pains or risk extended them on ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... indeterminate. In another country I should have named it as a charred log on an old pine burning, for that was precisely what it looked like. We glanced at it casually through our glasses. It was a sable buck lying down right out in the open. He was black and sleek, and we could make out his sweeping scimitar horns. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... stronger men and better armed, and Gilbert was ever the first to strike; and one day, as the fiercest of a band of Seljuks rode at him, whirling a crooked sword and shouting the cry, Gilbert cut off his arm at one stroke and it fell to the ground with the fist still grasping the scimitar; whereat Gilbert laughed fiercely and ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... placed in it a claim of the right of the civil authorities to search all premises where it was suspected that intoxicating liquors were kept for sale, and to seize and confiscate them on the spot. It was this sharp scimitar of search and seizure which gave the original Maine law its deadly power. He took his bill to the seat of government and it was promptly passed by the legislature. He brought it home in triumph, and in less ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... his eyes, gazing out to sea. He, too, was a tall and powerful man, and when he moved there was a glint of armour from the chain mail in which his body was cased, and from the steel casque about which he had swathed his green turban. Beside him lay an enormous curved scimitar in a sheath of brown leather that was heavy with steel ornaments. His face was handsome, and bearded, but swarthier far than his companion's, and the backs of his long fine hands ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini |
