"Assassin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mixed motive of clearing up before her departure and making it clean and bare as befitted a place where heroes came to do business; and she was more than unaware that Mr. Philip was watching her like an ambushed assassin, she was confident in a conception of the world which excluded any such happening. He was standing by the mantelpiece fastening his furry storm-gloves, and though he found it teasing to adjust the straps in the shadow, he would not step into the light and look down ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... done their best, or their worst, to throw doubt upon the story of Eleanor's sucking the poison with her lips from the arm of her husband when a dastardly assassin of those days struck at the life of Edward. But such a tradition, whether actually a fact or not, is a tribute to the affection and strength of Eleanor's character; and all historians agree that she instilled no poison into the life of king or country. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... serve on the jury. I had the curiosity to attend the trial, expecting to assist at an uproarious farce. All the proceedings, on the contrary, were conducted with the greatest decorum, and with minute attention to legal formalities. The assassin, ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... so desperately intrigued? Had she decoyed him to the rendezvous in the dark but to betray him to the bandits with whom she was in league? At first it would seem so. And yet the paper was in his possession; and, she it was who had rescued him from the assassin's knife. Where was she now? What had become of her? What was to be the end of this mad night's work? That she was the woman who had accompanied General Pointelle—or the Marechal de Boisdhyver—somehow did not surprise him. And for the time ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... the horror experienced by the assassin afterwards! So far as it went, it was as grand a reprehension of all murderers as hand could well have penned or tongue have uttered. It had about it something of the articulation of an avenging voice not against Sikes only, but against all who ever outraged, or ever dreamt ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... lawyer's words. With the return of his senses he had just begun to realize by what a narrow margin the assassin's bullet had missed destroying ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... brigand could pull the trigger, or Barney hurl himself upon his would-be assassin, there was a flash and a loud report from the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... divine,—the makers of counterfeit money, the forgers of land titles, the stealers of horses, robbers, murderers, thieves and criminals of every sort and condition, the fine gentleman and the ruffian, the duelist and the assassin—all these were now flocking to Rogue's Harbor. Once there, they were not long content merely to find a hiding place from the wrath of broken law and outraged civilization. They were soon seeking and finding opportunity to commit other and worse offences. ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... blood shed; gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery; battue^. massacre; fusillade, noyade^; thuggery, Thuggism^. deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus; execution &c (capital punishment) 972; judicial murder; martyrdom. butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur^; guet-a-pens; gallows, executioner &c (punishment) 975; man-eater, apache^, hatchet man [U.S.], highbinder [U.S.]. regicide, parricide, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that kiss, and those words of farewell, I compared myself with the traitor Judas, who made use of a kiss to betray; and with the sanguinary and treacherous assassin Joab, who plunged the sharp steel into the bowels of Amasa while in the ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... state of mind brought no satisfaction. He was interested; he could not escape his first impressions of the girl, or drive from him a desire to serve her, whether she wished it, or not. She might, indeed, be in equal danger from an assassin. He could not determine this until he learned the cause of the slaying of Percival. Then, on the other hand, suppose some one else's suspicions were also aroused. Who would they naturally look to as guilty of this horrible crime? There was ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... determination, not to come any nearer to it himself than he could possibly help. He has shown nothing like courage, nothing like confidence in the goodness of his cause, nothing like openness, candor, or generosity; nothing but craft and cunning. He has never fought like a soldier, but dodged like an assassin. Honorable men give up a cause that can't be honorably maintained. For myself, ye are witnesses, I came out openly, boldly, and at once, and gave my opponent the best opportunity he could have of grappling fairly with my arguments. But he would not ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... again complained to the Elector about them, and also about certain letters falsely ascribed to Luther, and then published a reply, under an assumed name, to his first pamphlet. Luther answered this 'libel' with a tract entitled 'Against the Assassin at Dresden,' not intended, as many have supposed, to impute murderous designs to the Duke, but referring to the calumnies and anonymous attacks in his book. The tone employed by Luther in this tract reminds ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... betrayed his designs to the o-omi, and the latter decided that the Emperor must be destroyed. An assassin was found in the person of Koma, a naturalized Chinese, suzerain of the Aya uji, and, being introduced into the palace by the o-omi under pretence of offering textile fabrics from the eastern provinces, he killed the Emperor. So omnipotent was the Soga chief that his murderous ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... or refused to save a man's life when attacked, if it was in his power to assist him, was punished as rigorously as the assassin:(329) but if the unfortunate person could not be succoured, the offender was at least to be impeached; and penalties were decreed for any neglect of this kind. Thus the subjects were a guard and protection to one another; and the whole body of the community united ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... reasoning can justification be found for the help which one celibate never asks in vain, but always receives from another celibate in deceiving a husband, and how shall we qualify the rendering of such help? A man who is incapable of assisting a gendarme in discovering an assassin, has no scruple in taking a husband to a theatre, to a concert or even to a questionable house, in order to help a comrade, whom he would not hesitate to kill in a duel to-morrow, in keeping an assignation, the result of which ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Bertrand calls him a fool to the Commissioners, and accuses him of collecting all the complaints he can gather together, so that he may have them published. The newspapers, particularly the Edinburgh Review, have slashing articles holding him up to ridicule and denouncing him as an "assassin." He whimpers that it is very hard that he, who pays every attention and regard for the Emperor's feelings, should be pursued and made the victim of calumnies. These expressions of unctuous pharisaism are coldly received by the French, who ask no ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... by the act of an assassin, the week-long struggle to save his life has been watched with keen solicitude, not alone by the people of this country, who raised him from their own ranks to the high office he filled, but by the people of all friendly nations, whose messages ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to assassinate Montrose. But it does not appear that there is any authority for this charge, which rests on mere suspicion. Ardvoirlich, the assassin, certainly did fly to the Covenanters, and was employed and promoted by them. He obtained a pardon for the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, confirmed by Parliament in 1634, and was made Major of Argyle's regiment ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... dismissed as impracticable, of assaulting Constable Cobb, returned to her in an amended form. Tom did not know it, but the reason why she smiled so radiantly upon him at that moment was that she had just elected him to the post of hired assassin. While she did not want Constable Cobb actually assassinated, she earnestly desired him to have his helmet smashed down over his eyes; and it seemed to her that Tom was the ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... exclamation of horror, accompanied by a violent struggle of its limbs, proclaimed reviving consciousness in the latter. A low wild laugh burst in scorn from the lips of the figure, and the strongly nerved arm was already descending to strike its assassin blow, when suddenly the pistol, which Gerald had almost unconsciously cocked and raised to the window, was discharged with a loud explosion. The awakened slumberer was now seen to spring from the bed to the floor, and in the action the lamp was overturned and extinguished; but all struggle appeared ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... to impress the travellers with an unfavourable opinion of the moral character of the people amongst whom they were then residing, but on this evening of the Sabbath, a Fantee was robbed of his effects, and stabbed by an assassin below the ribs, so that his life was despaired of. The most unlucky part, however, of this tragical affair to Richard Lander, was, that the natives, from some cause, which he could not divine, had imbibed the conceit ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... completely failed in the attempt. In 1628 a new Parliament threw the blame upon him of all the troubles and drawbacks from which the country was then suffering; and, in August, the same year, he was murdered by an assassin less than twelve months after he had succeeded in his proceedings ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... brother, the Czar, "her heart would break as the intended wife of Napoleon before she could reach the limits of his usurped dominions, and she cannot but consider as frightfully ominous this offer of marriage from an Imperial Assassin to the daughter and grand-daughter of two assassinated Emperors" (see "Letters of Two Brothers," by Lady G. Ramsden). The marriage of the Grand Duchess Catherine to the Duke of Oldenburg was hastily arranged to enable her to escape the alliance. The ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... one thousand lads first went, on guard! Yes, the fact was now before them. They were no longer segregated atoms, inert, ineffective, eccentric. They were part of that mighty bulwark of blood and iron that stood between law and rebellion, between the nation's heart and the assassin dagger of disunion. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... heavily marked with his own name by the side of the dead; or that because a man had uttered some threats of again challenging one whom he had already met upon the field of honor, he should be accused of being a midnight assassin, there was called the last witness for ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... rumors of assassination. Because Stanton insisted on a guard Major Rathbone was along. At 9 o'clock the party entered the President's box—the President was very happy—at 10:20 a shot was heard—Major Rathbone sprang to grapple with the assassin and was slashed with a dagger. The assassin fell as he sprang from the box to the stage, where he brandished his bloody dagger, yelled with terrible theatricalism, "sic semper tyrannis," and stalking lamely from the platform disappeared in the darkness and rode away. The President was unconscious ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... West Virginia, who was standing at a window near, and firing, shot him through the heart, the bullet passing through his body, and through the floor above. The act was purely malicious, and was done, doubtless, in revenge for some injury which our men had done the assassin or his family. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... was Schemschen-Chanum. She had borne a daughter to Abamelik, who was now an ardent Mahometan. This daughter took up her bow and arrows and concealed herself on the sloping river-bank. When David bathed in the waters of Locher she shot him, assassin-like, with an arrow in the back. David arose and made a great outcry and his voice sounded even up to Sassun. Zoenow-Owan, Chorassan, Uncle Toross, Tschoentschchapokrik, and Zoeranwegi came together, for they heard the voice of David. And Zoenow-Owan called to him from ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... after, the dog accidentally met the assassin; when instantly seizing him by the throat, he was with great difficulty compelled to quit his prey. As the dog continued to pursue and attack his master's murderer, although docile to all others, his behaviour began to attract ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... questions of the Spaniard. There, indeed, one might pause. Did they not seem put with much the same object with which the burglar or assassin, by day-time, reconnoitres the walls of a house? But, with ill purposes, to solicit such information openly of the chief person endangered, and so, in effect, setting him on his guard; how unlikely a procedure ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... dressed in the same clothes, as when she saw him last. He had evidently seen her approaching, and moved quickly to meet her. But in his haste he stumbled slightly; she reflected suddenly that ghosts did not stumble, and a feeling of relief came over her. And it was no assassin of her father that had been prowling around—only this unhappy fugitive. A momentary color came into her cheek; her coolness and hardihood returned; it was with a tinge of sauciness in her ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... there, and not a shadow, and to his mind it is not absurd to walk directly through this person. He cannot correct the wrong idea. Such a wrongly interpreted sense perception is called an illusion. Another example of illusion is the mistaking the whistle of a locomotive for the shriek of a pursuing assassin. ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... swear. Nevers has scarcely time to protest, and to sing that "among his ancestors were many soldiers, but never an assassin." He is arrested. The police and the aldermen rush forward and rapidly swear "to strike all at once." Saint Bris shouts the recitative which summons the Catholics to vengeance. The three monks, with white scarfs, hasten in by the door at the back of Nevers's room, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... now, with safer pride content, [k]The wisest justice on the banks of Trent? For, why did Wolsey, near the steeps of fate, On weak foundations raise th' enormous weight? Why but to sink beneath misfortune's blow, With louder ruin to the gulfs below? [l]What gave great Villiers to th' assassin's knife, And fix'd disease on Harley's closing life? What murder'd Wentworth, and what exil'd Hyde, By kings protected, and to kings allied? What but their wish indulg'd in courts to shine, And pow'r ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... strange matters." Midnight and secret murders too, from the imperfect state of the police, were more common; and the ferocious and brutal manners that would stamp the brow of the hardened ruffian or hired assassin, more incorrigible and undisguised. The portraits of Tyrrel and Forrest were, no doubt, done from the life. We find that the ravages of the plague, the destructive rage of fire, the poisoned chalice, lean ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... death. I purchased it, and upon a careful examination I found it to coincide in all respects with the scene which had passed through my imagination in the dream. The colours of the dresses, the buttons of the assassin's coat, the white waistcoat of Mr. Perceval, the spot of blood upon it, the countenances and attitudes of the parties present were ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... believe at once, even as he wheeled gun in hand to confront the careless gun-handler or the assassin, as the case might prove, that the shot could have been intended for him, but out of caution he darted as quick as an Indian behind a pyramid of beer kegs. From that shelter he explored in the direction of ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... others of them perceiving this atrocious action, clasped each other about the body, and leapt into the sea, where they were drowned. This infamous act was much disliked by all the Spaniards, so that the assassin was carried prisoner to Lisbon; upon which the king of Spain commanded him to be sent to England, that the queen might use him according to her pleasure; which sentence, at the earnest request of the friends of the murderer, was commuted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Bible, said to be done by the express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice as anything done by Robespierre, by Carrier, by Joseph le Ben, in France; by the English Government in the East Indies; or by any other assassin in modern times. Are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned these things to be done? Are we sure that the books that tell us so were written by His authority? To read the Bible without horror, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... and at nearly the same hour in which the fatal bullet pierced the breast of Desaix, an assassin in Egypt plunged a dagger into the bosom of Kleber. The spirits of these illustrious men, these blood-stained warriors, thus unexpectedly met in the spirit-land. There they wander now. How impenetrable the vail which shuts their ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... of fate, all the colonel's wealth came into my hands. At first I thought of refusing the legacy. It seemed odious to take a sou of that inheritance; it seemed worse than the reward of a hired assassin. For three days this thought obsessed me; but more and more I was thrust against this consideration: that my refusal would not fail to awake suspicion. Finally I settled upon a compromise; I would accept the inheritance and ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... toy. It is a huge mass of expensive, solemn, and insipid magnificence, erected over the carcasses of as contemptible a family as ever rioted above the earth, or rotted under it. The only man of the race, Cosmo il Vecchio, who deserves any healthy admiration, although he was the real assassin of Florentine and Italian freedom, and has thus earned the nickname of Pater Patriae, is not buried here. The series of mighty dead begins with the infamous Cosmo, first grand duke, the contemporary of Philip II. of Spain, and his counterpart in character and crime. Then there is Ferdinando ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... are of surprising tenuity. In their communications with one another they are volatile; verbose in conversation, and puerile in manner: continually embroiled in some quarrel, which either ends in words, or terminates in the act of the secret assassin; rarely coming to an open rupture while the adversaries are ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... manuscript may show that Sir Philip had some enemy, and who but an enemy could have had a motive for such a crime? Come, bring forth the book. You of all men are bound to be alert in every research that may guide the retribution of justice to the assassin of your benefactor." ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... concern Of Phoebus, worthy thine too, for the dead; I also, as is meet, will lend my aid To avenge this wrong to Thebes and to the god. Not for some far-off kinsman, but myself, Shall I expel this poison in the blood; For whoso slew that king might have a mind To strike me too with his assassin hand. Therefore in righting him I serve myself. Up, children, haste ye, quit these altar stairs, Take hence your suppliant wands, go summon hither The Theban commons. With the god's good help Success is sure; 'tis ruin if we ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... low by the assassin's thrust, it was Aristotle who backed up Alexander, aged twenty—but a man—in his prompt suppression of the revolution. The will that had been used to subdue man-eating stallions and to train wild animals, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... losing her power, and of becoming once more a bourgeoise of Paris, perpetually tormented her. After she had succeeded in suppressing the Jesuits, she fancied she beheld in each monk of the order as assassin and a poisoner.—Memoires historiques de ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... at Kanus' hired assassin." The newsmen turned toward Odal, who stood before his booth, ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... lawyer. "But the assassin could only have learned Dalibard's habits from some one in the house. Was the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upon our track? Your family is all-powerful—I am a mere nobody—we should be crushed if they discover us. They would bury you in a gloomy cloister, and I should be tried as a common thief, or as a vile assassin.' My only answer was: 'Let us go! Let us ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Theodora!—After having borne the extremity of sorrows, which seemed to surpass the strength of human forbearance, instigated by madness and despair, she had grasped the dagger in that soft hand little adequate for a deed so dark; like the midnight assassin, she had entered the chamber of her wronger, bent upon the commission of crime. But the sight of him who was once so dear disarms her—she cannot accomplish the deed of guilt, and the sudden repentance of her betrayer, like a potent charm, soon ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the police. Personally, he was convinced that the murderer had escaped by the window. The bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion, on that point. Besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other possible way of escaping. He could not explain what had become of the assassin or why he had not taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his. He could not possibly have been drowned in the moat, which was at no place more than ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... a time when the light was doubtful in order that we might avoid the tourists, but as we approach the funeral dwelling of Sultan Barkuk, the assassin, we see, issuing from it, a whole band, some twenty in a line, who emerge from the darkness of the abandoned walls, each trotting on his little donkey and each followed by the inevitable Bedouin driver, who taps with his stick upon the rump of the beast. They are returning ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... Malaysia, owing to the drastic measures adopted by the authorities. Among the Mohammedans of the southern Philippines, where the custom is known as juramentado, it was discouraged by burying the carcass of a pig—an animal abhorred by all Moslems—in the grave with the body of the assassin. When I was in Jolo the governor told me of a novel and highly effective method which had been adopted by the officer commanding the American forces in that island for discouraging the custom. A number ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... me on the pavement. There it is over the window;" and the captain pointed to it. "He was wounded; and then he ran away, for he did not like to play with a revolver. Before I could get to him, the other assassin got on his feet and followed him, though he moved with no little labor and pain; but my business was not with him, and ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... some beef soup. George ate some, but very little; however he drank a great jugful of water—then dozed and fell into a fine perspiration. It was a favorable crisis, and from that moment youth and a sound constitution began to pull him through; moreover no assassin had been there ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... hope of peace, then the shock of the intelligence that Lincoln and Seward, our great names borne up on the swelling tide of the nation's gratulation and hope, have fallen, in the same hour, under the stroke of the assassin,—these are the awful visitations of God!. . . As I slowly awake to the dreadful truth, the question that presses upon me—that presses upon the national heart—is, what is to become of us? If the reins of ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... What do you mean? This is horrible!" exclaimed Sybil, dropping the dagger, and looking around upon her husband and friends, who all shrank from her. "I have taken no life! I am no assassin! Who dares to accuse me?" she demanded, standing up pale and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... popularity, and the Czar was alternately furious and frightened at its loss. Guards were planted in every part of the city, with orders to disperse all groups. Every man who looked at the Imperial equipage as it passed through the streets, was in danger of being arrested as an assassin. Nobles were suddenly exiled—none knew why, or where. The cloud was thickening round the palace. It is a perilous thing to be the one object on which every eye involuntary turns, as the cause of public evil. Rumours of conspiracy rose and died, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... character that he represents he is a madman, and ought to be confined. Nay, Sir, he is a villain, and ought to be hanged. If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation of the laws of hospitality as well as of other principles, has imbrued his hands in the blood of his King while he was sleeping under his roof. If, Sir, he has really been that person in his own mind, he has ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... before I could catch the news. At last it was shouted at me over a telephone. Murder! A white Greek—who ever heard of a colored Greek?—with a white shirt on had shot a man at Pedro Miguel at 6:35. Every road and bypath of escape to Panama was already blocked, armed men would meet the assassin whatever way he might take. I went down to meet the evening train, resolved after that to strike out into the night in the random hope of having my share in the chase. It had begun to rain again, but only moderately, as if it realized it could never ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... self-love, he is sulky and rancorous, he bears malice, he is a bad bed-fellow. To-day let an author receive a treacherous stab in the back, let him avoid the snares set for him with base hypocrisy, and endure the most unhandsome treatment, he must still exchange greetings with his assassin, who, for that matter, claims the esteem and friendship of his victim. Everything can be excused and justified in an age which has transformed vice into virtue and virtue into vice. Good-fellowship has come to be the most sacred ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... From the Chief of the Police at Archangel, Sire. "The Governor of the province was shot this morning by a woman as he was entering the courtyard of his own house. The assassin has ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... on the towering Apennines, she recollected the terrific scenery they had exhibited and the horrors she had suffered, on the preceding night, particularly at the moment when Bertrand had betrayed himself to be an assassin; and these remembrances awakened a train of images, which, since they abstracted her from a consideration of her own situation, she pursued for some time, and then arranged in the following lines; pleased to have discovered ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... left Storch dead or merely stunned, and, granting either alternative, how definitely this circumstance would halt the plot against Hilmer's life. It was conceivable to him now that Storch might have provided against the possibility of failure, given the role of assassin into the hands of an understudy, to be exact. Suppose Ginger should fail in her warning? Not that he doubted her, but there was a chance that she had been hedged about with all manner of difficulties—perhaps even death. Suddenly with an arresting irrelevance he thought of the child upon ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... risen to his feet, staggered toward the Texan, who struggled to free his knife-hand from the clutch of the real assassin, and with a wild laugh, tore the false hair from the Texan's head. As a roll of woman's hair came down in a flood of beauty over her shoulders, Bill ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... to th' Assassin's Knife, And fix'd Disease on Harley's closing Life? What murder'd Wentworth, and what exil'd Hyde, By Kings protected and to Kings ally'd? What but their Wish indulg' in Courts to shine, And Pow'r too great to keep or to resign? [Footnote f: ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... Gladness" and "Flower of Pity," used to come down to drink from the Spring of the Huisache the song of the dove was all of joy. A youthful Indian brave of rare enchantment came into their lives and brought love and treachery, and the assassin's knife felled the Indian youth on the brink of the Huisache. "Flower of Pity," coming to the spring, found the lifeless form of the young warrior and snatched the knife from the wound and plunged it into her own heart. A little later "Flower of Gladness" found ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... this is the sweet-scented assassin who prates of "honor," and is sometimes known as "the noblest ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... about the barefaced murder of the Duc d'Enghien, and the secret destruction of Pichegru, could neither much hesitate, nor be very conscientious about adding Moreau to the number of his victims. True, but the assassin in authority is also generally a politician. The untimely end of the Duc d'Enghien and of Pichegru was certainly lamented and deplored by the great majority of the French people; but though they had many who pitied their fate, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... meets the victim selected slips up behind him and shoots or stabs him in the back. It may be in a dark alley at midnight, in an opium den, at the entrance to a theater, or in the victim's bed. If the assassin is arrested the society furnishes witness to prove an alibi and money to retain a lawyer. Another favorite pastime of the Highbinder who is usually a loafer, is to levy blackmail on a wealthy Chinaman. If the sum ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... great jail. He read the letter again, and tried to read into the lines Jimmy's mother, and failed. He glanced into the ward. Still Jimmy slept. A burly convalescent, with a saber cut from temple to ear and the general appearance of an assassin, had stopped beside the bed and was drawing up the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sanctuary would not offer us adequate protection from Holgate if he wished to pursue us, and my heart sank as I considered the position. Would he at the best leave us to our fate on the island? And if so, would that be more merciful than despatching us by the bullet of the assassin? ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... former days who had some wicked work to perform,—an enemy to be put out of the way, a quantity of false coin to be passed, a lie to be told or a murder to be done—employed a professional perjurer or assassin to do the work, which they were themselves too notorious or too cowardly to execute: our notorious contemporary, the Day, engages smashers out of doors to utter forgeries against individuals, and calls in auxiliary cut-throats to murder the reputation of those who offend him. A black-vizarded ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for the birth of the Biddenden Maids is so remote as to throw grave doubt upon the reality of the occurrence. The year 1100 was, it will be remembered, that in which William Rufus was found dead in the New Forest, 'with the arrow either of a hunter or an assassin in his breast.' According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, several 'prodigies' preceded the death of this profligate and extravagant monarch. Thus it is recorded that 'at Pentecost blood was observed gushing from the earth at a certain town of Berkshire, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... racket, me dear, for ye did howl after all. We heard you right up in the schoolroom. You're not the hero you thought yourself, to mistake an innocent gentleman for a midnight assassin." ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and honest Stolypin, as those present seized the assassin, who was none other than ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... himself, and heard that I had had him brought on board, he was very angry at my interference, though the surgeon assured me that by my promptitude his life had been saved. According to his account, he had received his wound from an assassin, who, probably mistaking him for some one else, had rushed out and struck him with his dagger; but the surgeon, who was not among his admirers, hinted that this was impossible, and that there would have been no great loss to ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... East or West, cross the Oceans, or traverse the Alps, the hand of an avenging People will be upon you. Your second failure will be punished by death, wherever you may be, either by the guillotine, if you are in France, or if you seek refuge elsewhere, then by the hand of an assassin. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... bon, mefiez-vous de vos gens! Your art gentleman says that Mr. Whistler exhibits twelve etchings, "slight in execution and unimportant in size." Now the private assassin you keep, for us, need not be hampered by mere connoisseurship in the perpetration of his duty—therefore, passe, for the execution—but he should not compromise his master's reputation for brilliancy, and print things that he ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... personally popular, while Otto's brusquerie and selfishness alienated many supporters. Consequently from 1203 Philip distinctly obtained the upper hand, and at length in 1207 Innocent opened negotiations with him. But these were rendered futile when Philip fell victim to the assassin's knife in June, 1208. Otto's acceptance now became inevitable, and he did everything to conciliate his opponents. He submitted himself to a fresh election by the German nobles, and won the Hohenstaufen by marrying Beatrice, the daughter of his late rival. He made new concessions ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... return. Inquiring of Mr. Herbert who he was, the King was greatly surprised to learn he was the dreadful Major Harrison. He looked a real soldier, the King said, and, if there might be trust in men's faces, was not the man to be an assassin. On arriving at Farnham, where they spent the night in a private house, the King took care to pay considerable attention to Harrison. Standing by the fire before supper, in a large wainscoted room full of ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... wearisome proceedings were at an end—and Cleek had spoken no word of that would-be assassin who had come upon him in the dark watches of the night and sought his life. He noted that Borkins looked at him in some surprise, but held his counsel. Borkins knew more than he had said upon his oath this day; of ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... The said dragoon had been sabring our unarmed countrymen, however, at the gate, after they were in arrest, and held by the guards, and wounded one, Captain Hay, very severely. However, he got his paiks—having acted like an assassin, and being treated like one. Who wounded him, though it was done before thousands of people, they have never been able to ascertain, or prove, nor even the weapon; some said a pistol, an air-gun, a stiletto, a sword, a lance, a pitchfork, and what not. They have arrested ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... Benvenuto Cellini—bully, assassin, insufferable egoist, and so forth, as well as artist. If he had not been sufficiently in love with his own swashbuckler rascality to write his amazing autobiography, how dim to our imaginations, comparatively, would have been the world ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... for some time, when, suddenly awaking, he became conscious that some one was in the vault, by hearing a footstep and a low sound of breathing. A feeling of horror for a moment ran through him. Could it be an assassin sent by the governor or priests to put him secretly to death, and so to save themselves from carrying out the sentence passed on him, from which even they might shrink, aware of the horror it would create among the greater number of the colonists, who, ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... treachery was meditated. But Queapama believed otherwise, and the two chiefs, in sight of their people, went out to the meeting. Scarcely had Queapama reached the Snake chief when he was treacherously murdered by a concealed assassin. Burning for revenge, the Warm Springs renewed the fight, when the Snakes drew off and ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... there is not a moment to lose," replied Wulf, agitated. "She loves the King and she hated Susy d'Orsel, therefore she is the assassin. She is the cause of all the troubles that have fallen upon the head of our beloved sovereign. Ah! I want to arrest her! Condemn her to death! Come, Marquis, let us go to her ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... in tales heroic How a noble Scottish maid Her own life gave, her king to save From the foul assassin's blade. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... over the parapet, turned it suddenly upside down, and launched the luckless Moumouth into the icy waters of the river. The cat, in dropping through space, gave a cry that seemed to come from a human voice. The assassin shuddered, but his emotion did not last long. He thrust his hands into his pockets and said, in a tone of ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... of the trial was postponed to await the results of the warrants issued for the arrest of the assassin. People compared my trial to that of Calas, and the comparison had no sooner become a general topic of conversation than my judges, finding themselves exposed to a thousand shafts, realized very vividly that hatred and prejudice are bad counsellors and dangerous guides. The ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... have gone all the processions of the seasons. How do hand and vision protect man? Hunters use sharp spears for keeping back wild beasts, but Livingstone, armed only with eye beams, drove a snarling beast into the thicket, and Luther, lifting his great eyes upon an assassin, made the murderer flee. What flute or harp is comparable for sweetness to the voice? It carries warning and alarm. It will speak for you, plead for you, pray for you. Truly it is an architect, fulfilling Dante's dictum, "piling up mountains of melody." Serving the soul well, the body ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... summons on a witness); though for five long months, in hot weather, he was kept heavily chained in a cell four by eight feet in dimensions; though he received five dreadful stabs, aimed at his heart, by a bribed assassin, nevertheless he still rejoices in the motives which prompted him to "undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free." Having resided nearly all his life in the South, where he had traveled and seen much of the "peculiar institution," and had witnessed the most horrid enormities ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... magician, she could not help shewing, by marks of the greatest indignation, how much she detested him; and when her son had finished his story, she broke out into a thousand reproaches against that vile impostor. She called him perfidious traitor, barbarian, assassin, deceiver, magician, and an enemy and destroyer of mankind. "Without doubt, child," added she, "he is a magician, and they are plagues to the world, and by their enchantments and sorceries have commerce with the devil. Bless God for preserving ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... affectations of literature must not be omitted. The jailer of the press, he affected the patronage of letters; the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning; the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... How now, assassin? Walking at my gate With eye undimmed, thou plotter demonstrate Against this life, and robber of my crown? God help thee! Me! What was it set me down Thy butt? So dull a brain hast found in me Aforetime, such a faint heart, not to see Thy work ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... first production of the silver bowl, had shown a lively interest in it by moving its great head up and down excitedly. The noise made by Don Juan, however, decided it; it began to uncoil itself from the would-be assassin and finally dropped on the floor with a "slump" and wriggled out of the window on to the terrace. As the man was released, I covered him with the revolver as I was taking no risks, but it was quite unnecessary, as he fell fainting on a couch to which he had staggered ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... fugitive prince, who had saved his life by swimming the Euphrates under the eyes of an assassin band, became the Caliph of the West, for under him Spain was cut loose from the dominion of the Abbassides and made an independent kingdom, its conqueror becoming its first monarch under ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... singularly isolated nature. Now, however, the concentration of the poor girl's thoughts upon the one object which had had power to reach her deeper sensibilities was so painfully revealed in her features, that Helen began to fear once more, lest Mr. Bernard, in escaping the treacherous violence of an assassin, had been left to the equally dangerous consequences of a violent, engrossing passion in the breast of a young creature whose love it would be ruin to admit and might be deadly to reject. She knew her own heart too well to fear that any jealousy might mingle with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... an air of loneliness about this spot," he remarked, "that in itself suggests crime. If this were an ordinary murder, one could well imagine the assassin was aided in his diabolical work by the configuration of the land which, shelving as it does, slips down into the narrow valley, so as to preclude any possibility of escape on the part of the victim. The place seems especially designed by Providence as a death-trap. Let us have a look at the ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... cried the speaker, "upon the murderer, the assassin of poor Will Whittaker! And I say to you, friends and neighbors, that unless you now, at once, mete out justice upon that murderer's head, there is no surety that justice will be done. To-day you have seen him walking defiantly about the streets, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... proposing by way of compromise to banish those whose lives were threatened; armed men were in the very palace of government, and we ourselves at their mercy. Accident, however, effected at a stroke what we could have done only slowly and with difficulty. An assassin attempted the life of a carbineer; his companions, inflamed with anger, pursued him and caught him in a church. They then volunteered their most resolute efforts at repression. They were ordered to sally forth, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... himself, his family, and friends. Only once had his eye flashed fire and his cheek burned, and his right hand unconsciously sought where his weapon should have hung, when his noble brother was termed a ribald assassin, an excommunicated murderer; but quickly he checked that natural emotion, and remained collected as before. He was silent till the usual question was asked, "If he had any thing to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him?" and then he made a step forward, looked boldly and sternly ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... carrying a basket of grapes and peaches, also wine to refill the empty bottles in the boat. On my way down the hill, I stopped at the ruin of a mediaeval castle that belonged to Poltrot de Mere, the assassin of the Due de Guise. All this country of the Angoumois, even more than Perigord, is full of the history of the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The whole of the southwestern region of France might be termed the classic ground of atrocities ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... of his fate. By what spells, what magic, did Marius reinstate himself in his natural prerogatives? By what marvels drawn from heaven or from earth, did he, in the twinkling of an eye, again invest himself with the purple, and place between himself and his assassin a host of shadowy lictors? By the mere blank supremacy of great minds over weak ones. He fascinated the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. Standing "like Teneriffe," he smote him with his eye, and said, "Tune, homo, audes occidere C. Marium?"—"Dost thou, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... he bawled me out worse than ever. He said I was not only a wild Welshman and a blockhead, but what is more deadly still, I was a gorilla and an assassin. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Courtrey," she said, "you fast gun man! You're too slow. An' this ain't your game, anyway, not face t' face. You're all right on a dark night—an' from behind. Fine! But you're a coward. You're what I called you before—an assassin." ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... hanged if you get it, anyway!" Laverick answered fiercely. "You assassin! Scoundrel! To come here and make a cold-blooded effort at murder! You shall see what you think of the ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wise man, he refrained from making the slightest sound that might betray his whereabouts to a prowling assassin; but, slowly and very carefully, he disengaged his arms from the blankets and reached out for one of his revolvers. With this in his hand he felt much more comfortable, and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Practised successfully the talent of silence Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any substantial Stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel The assassin, tortured and torn by four horses They have killed him, 'e ammazato,' cried Concini Things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful Uncouple the dogs and let them run Vows of an eternal friendship of several weeks' duration ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... was now flooded with light, and I looked for the assassin. He was not to be found! The room contained only Gwen, Darrow, and his four invited guests! The doors were closed; the windows had not been touched. No one could possibly have entered or left the room, and yet the assassin was not there. But one solution ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... recognise the danger in which they stood. Philip gradually achieved his immediate end of being recognised as the captain-general of the Hellenes, and their leader in a new Persian war, when his life was cut short by an assassin, and he was succeeded by his youthful ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... each well knit act and telling scene. But that worthy man, perhaps at this moment sipping his coffee at the Authors' Club, gave his drama its form only; its substance is created by the men and women who, with sympathy, intelligence and grace, embody with convincing power the hero and heroine, assassin and accomplice, lover and jilt. For the success of many a play their writers would be quick to acknowledge a further and initial debt, both in suggestion and criticism, to the artists who know from ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... men says there's a crowd of twelve hundred more just coming in from the faubourg de Rome," said the lieutenant of gendarmes, "and they are threatening death to the assassin." ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... party, as senator of the United States and finally as Secretary of State, had rendered service absolutely inestimable; who for years had braved storms of calumny and ridicule and finally the knife of an assassin; and who was now adhering to Andrew Johnson simply because he knew that if he let go his hold, the President would relapse into the hands of men opposed to any rational settlement of the questions ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... conscience, sense of duty, and caution which still remained in John's head—I will not say in John's heart, for that was full to overflowing with something else—were quickly banished by the unwelcome news in Dorothy's letter. His first impulse was to kill Stanley; but John Manners was not an assassin, and a duel would make public all he wished to conceal. He wished to conceal, among other things, his presence at Rutland. He had two reasons for so desiring. First in point of time was the urgent purpose ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... Dechambre relates the history of a Hindoo who hid himself in the waters of the Ganges where women were bathing, seized one of them by the legs, drowned her, and then removed her jewels. Her disappearance was attributed to crocodiles. One woman who succeeded in escaping him denounced the assassin, who was seized and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... assembled—tall persons in cocked hats, coats and badges, a posse of police, and the villainous cavaliere smirking in the midst. So soon as we entered the grove he pointed to me with his cane and said in a loud voice: "There, Signor Sindaco, there is the fugitive assassin, the betrayer of an innocent girl. Speed him back to Tuscany with the added wages he has richly earned in Lucca." The police advanced, seized me, bound my wrists. An old gentleman without teeth read a long legal instrument without ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... highly offended Bonaparte, who ordered them both to be transported to Guadeloupe, under pretence that the latter had said in a coffee-house that his sister would rather have been the housemaid of the wife of a ci-devant valet, than the friend of the wife of a ci-devant assassin and Septembrizer. It was only by a valuable present to Madame Bonaparte from Madame Moulin, that Mademoiselle de B——- was not included in the act of proscription against her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of course, and it only deals with the points which seem to me to be essential. All the rest you will see later for yourself. Now, first of all, presuming that the assassin entered the house, how did he or she come in? Undoubtedly by the garden path and the back door, from which there is direct access to the study. Any other way would have been exceedingly complicated. The escape must have also been made along that ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 1685, at the age of thirty-three, from a fever contracted by drinking water when heated by running after an assassin (Spence's 'Anecdotes', p. 44). Theophilus Cibber ('Lives of the Poets', ed. 1753, vol. ii. pp. 333, 334) gives another account of his death, viz. that he begged a shilling of a gentleman, and, being given a guinea, bought a roll, with which he ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the cause of the Union seemed furthest off, Mr. Noble never faltered; he believed that the cause was just and that right would finally triumph. When the terrible and heart-rending news was received that an assassin's bullet had ended the life of the greatest of all presidents the effect was so paralyzing that hearts almost ceased beating. Every member of the congregation felt as if one of their own household had ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... years past, ascribed to his talents all the glory and prosperity of France, and all her misery and misfortunes to the disregard of his counsels, and to the neglect of his advice. Bonaparte knows it; and that he is one of those crafty, sly, and dark conspirators, more dangerous than the bold assassin, who, by sophistry, art, and perseverance insinuate into the minds of the unwary and daring the ideas of their plots, in such an insidious manner that they take them and foster them as the production of their own genius; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... here observed, alluding to the sure blow she had given, that she must be well practiced in crime. "The monster takes me for an assassin!" she exclaimed, in a tone thrilling with indignation. This closed the debates, and her defender rose. It was not Doulcet de Pontecoulant—who had not received her letter—but Chauveau de la Garde, chosen ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... naked bosom red from fight, With ruthless fingers clutching tight A dagger stained by murderous hue, Till now, in one great lurch, he threw His whole frame forward, aiming quick A deadly, inexorable blow, That, weakly faltering, missed its mark, And left the assassin breathing thick, Levelled by nerveless overthrow, There near the Greek ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... ought to strike, instead of persistently seeking the narrow slit in the neck. The weapon would not need to hesitate and grope; it would obtain admission into the tissues off-hand. No, the stroke of the lancet is not forced upon it mechanically: the assassin scorns the large defect in the corselet and prefers the place under the chin, for eminently logical reasons which we ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... went yesterday. I hated to have him go. It is awfully disagreeable and dangerous down there they say. He might get a fever or get killed or something." Tony absent-mindedly nibbling a piece of roll already saw Dick in her mind's eye the victim of an assassin's blade. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... out, a really good pretext was soon found upon which repressive measures might be taken. I have already mentioned that on May 11, 1878, Emperor William was shot at by Hoedel. It was, of course, natural that the reactionaries should make the most possible of this act of the would-be assassin, and, when photographs of several prominent socialists were found on his person, a great clamor arose for a coercive law to destroy the social democrats. The question was immediately discussed in the Reichstag, but the moderate forces prevailed, and the bill was rejected. Hardly, however, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... I think it was very ungracious in His Majesty," said Lady Fisher, laughing. "I am sure he ought to have sent it to Millicent here, who reckoned him a Roundhead and an assassin to boot, if he meant to show how forgiving he ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... through Thurstane's head from behind? Knowing the cutthroat's recklessness and his almost insane thirst for blood, he feared that this might happen. And there was the train in view; the deed would probably be seen, and, if so, would be seen as murder; and then would come pursuit of the assassin, with possibly his seizure and confession. It would not do; no, it would not do here and now; he must dash forward ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... crimes had no effect upon their obdurate hearts. A man, whose opinions were at variance with the received doctrines, whose abstract systems did not harmonize with those of his priest, was more loathed than a corrupter of youth; more abhorred than an assassin; more hated than an oppressor; was held in greater contempt than a robber; was punished with greater rigor than the seducer of innocence. The acme of all wickedness, was to despise that which the priest was desirous should be looked upon as sacred. The celebrated ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... traverses the most affecting regions of the world, and describes no one of them: the Troad—and we get only his childish raptures over Pope's "Homer's Iliad"; Stamboul—and he recounts the murderous services rendered by the Golden Horn to the Assassin whose serail, palace, council chamber, it washes; Cairo— but the Plague shuts out all other thoughts; Jerusalem—but Pilgrims have vulgarized the Holy Sepulchre into a Bartholomew Fair. He gives us everywhere, not history, ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... himself in another's place. And so, while his pen wrote, his heart felt itself to be the king and also his servant, to be the merchant and also his clerk, to be the general and also his soldier. He saw the assassin drawing near the throne with a dagger beneath his cloak; he went forth with King Lear to shiver beneath the wintry blasts; he rejoiced with Rosalind and wept with Hamlet, and there was no joy or grief or woe or wrong that ever touched a human heart that he did not perfectly ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... allow myself to remind your majesty that had M. d'Herblay wished to carry out his character of an assassin, he could very easily have assassinated your majesty this morning in the forest of Senart, and all would have ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... miscarriage into total Ionic (he could not resist statuary and Siena marble), are all of a good King James the First Gothic. I saw the heronry so fatal to Po Yang, and told him that I was persuaded they were descended from Becket's assassin, and I hoped from my Lord Dacre too. He carried us to see the famous plantations and buildings of the last Lord Petre. They are the Brobdignag of the bad taste. The Unfinished house is execrable, massive, and split through and through: it stands on the brow ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... order of things. Orestes, as a prince, was, it is true, called upon to exercise justice, even on the members of his own family; but we behold him here under the necessity of stealing in disguise into the dwelling of the tyrannical usurper of his throne, and of going to work like an assassin. The memory of his father pleads his excuse; but however much Clytemnestra may have deserved her death, the voice of blood cries from within. This conflict of natural duties is represented in the Eumenides in the form ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... avails it that, amain, I clove the assassin's head in twain? No peace of mind, my Helen slain, No resting-place for me. I see her spirit in the air— I hear the shriek of wild despair, When murder laid her bosom ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow's-feet, harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild boar; the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... after a little. "Let men kill each other openly, if they will, but the methods of the ambushed assassin should recoil upon himself." ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... which he attains his ends, his unblushing hypocrisy, the fascination he can exercise at will over others, the Richard III. of Shakespeare shows how clearly the poet understood the instinctive criminal of real life. The Richard of history was no doubt less instinctively and deliberately an assassin than the Richard of Shakespeare. In the former we can trace the gradual temptation to crime to which circumstances provoke him. The murder of the Princes, if, as one writer contends, it was not the work of Henry VII.—in which case that monarch deserves ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Babu in Bengal, is specially fitted by nature for intrigue, and if he sees a chance to oppose whatever government is in power and keep his own skin, it is his idea of living well. Egypt was immediately put under martial law, but there was plenty of scope for a while for the midnight assassin and the poisoner. Here and there soldiers would disappear and street riots would be started by the wind. Who would not turn round on seeing an R. S. V. P. eye in a face whose veil enhanced the beauty it did not hide? But there would always be some sedition-monger to immediately fill the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the catholic religion, undertook to destroy the prince of Orange. Having procured fire arms, he watched him as he passed through the great hall of his palace to dinner, and demanded a passport. The princess of Orange, observing that the assassin spoke with a hollow and confused voice, asked who he was? saying, she did not like his countenance. The prince answered, it was one that demanded a passport, which he ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... walks of vice, there was something so unearthly about a creature that had been as good as dead for eight-and-forty years, that it was impossible anything he said could affect me as the rancorous tongue of another man would. I feared and hated him because I knew that in intent he was already my assassin; but the mere insolences of so incredible a creature could not but find ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... riding level with the little, hard-faced English huntsman. In front of us were the dogs, and then, a hundred paces beyond them, was a brown wisp of a thing, the fox itself, stretched to the uttermost. The sight of him fired my blood. "Aha, we have you then, assassin!" I cried, and shouted my encouragement to the huntsman. I waved my hand to show him that there was one upon whom he ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... advantage the influences and the power of evil. What new distress will he bring to Christian souls, this applauder of the Armenian massacres, when, after having covered with his favour, supported by his strength, guided by his advice and encouraged by his friendship, the assassin who reigns at Constantinople, he makes his pilgrimage to Palestine, escorted in triumph by the same soldiers who, by order of the Red Sultan, have killed, tortured and tormented Christians? We shall see him kneeling before ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... their midst, made sudden reprisals in a manner so unexpected and daring, that the laws of the hour like those of Draco, were literally written in blood. While the dash and chivalry of the Irish prevented them from adopting the stealthy dagger of the assassin, and prompted them rather, to bold and open deeds of death, the enactments of "The Pale" as the English patch or district was termed, were absolutely of a character the most demonical. According to their provisions, the murder of an Irish man or woman was no offence whatever; while ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... with images of violence and blood, he capitulates to the Old Men, fuddles himself with opium, and sits among his guards in dreadful expectation. The same cowardice that put into his hand the knife of the assassin deprives him of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the hero or heroine, which can daunt an assassin as could the piercing glance of Marius, are the "falcon eyes" ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... this might be given, but as the mist is impenetrable, we will turn to one where the light can be seen—the story of the peasant of Termes, who assassinates a praetor, while that officer is passing along a road unattended. The assassin, being on the back of a fleet horse, gallops off to a wood, entering which, after turning his horse loose, he baffles pursuit by clambering over steep and stony parts into the pathless wilderness, "where," ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... postponed, but celebrated a week later, on the 17th of August, 1572, with great pomp; the bridegroom took up his lodgings in the Louvre, but, five days later, Coligny, returning to his little hotel in the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, was fired at by an assassin named Maurevert in the pay of the Guises, receiving one ball in the left arm and losing the index finger of his right hand by another. The excessive grief and concern manifested by the king seems to have disarmed his suspicions; but Catherine, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... square lying between the hotel and the harbor, where the gay colors, shooting-booths, hurdy-gurdies, drums, fifes, flags, and games, together with a wax exhibition, representing a terrible murder and an assassin committing the deed with a poker painted red hot, all served to remind us of a similar occasion at Tokio, in far-off Japan. Striking scenic effects came in here and there, the distant summits of the Pyrenees being visible beyond the mountains ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou |
