"Black Hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the savage that a great black hand struck him in the face and flung him backward. He lay for a moment, half-stunned; then he sat up, and, behold! the sun had gone out and he was in ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... grave—that was the way to solve it. That would still leave it possible to collect the insurance, too. The blackmail letter about the five thousand dollars was only a blind, to lay on the mythical Black Hand the blame for the desecration. Brought into light, humidity, and warmth, the body would recover consciousness and the life-functions resume their normal state after the anabiotic coma into which Phelps had ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... fell with a sharp crack and disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the door, and in walked a dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed vision of Mr. Daniel Brewster looked like something connected with the executive staff of the Black Hand. With all time at his disposal, the unfortunate Salvatore had selected this ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... not the jerk of the starting train that half awoke me, but the consciousness that some one had flung himself into the compartment when the train was already in motion. I saw a small man putting something in the rack—a large black hand-bag. Through the haze of my sleep I saw him, vaguely resented him. He had no business to have slammed the door like that, no business to have jumped into a moving train, no business to put that huge hand-bag into a rack which was 'for light baggage only,' and no business to be wearing, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... treat, a happiness, on which his thoughts were constantly dwelling, to watch the black hand of the little maid pouring out something into his glass whilst her teeth, brighter than her eyes, showed themselves as she laughed. When they had kept company in this way for two months they became fast friends, and Boitelle, after ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... great logs, crumbling low, Sent out a dull and duller glow, The bull's-eye watch, that hung in view, Ticking its weary circuit through, Pointed with mutely-warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. That sign the pleasant circle broke: My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away, Then roused himself to safely cover The dull red brand with ashes over. And ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... small black hand gave the salute gravely. G. W. never by any possible chance forgot his military training. "But, Colonel, you goes furder ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... if possible, what had occasioned the race. I learned that my friend, after I left him, had gone into the windfall, and was standing upon the long trunk of a fallen tree, picking berries, when he saw, a few rods from him towards the other end of the log on which he was standing, a great black hand reach up and bend down a tall blackberry-bush that was loaded with berries. This alarmed him somewhat, for whoever the great black hand belonged to was concealed by the thick bushes and their foliage from his view. Presently, two great black hands were placed upon the ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... they were real flowers. He could smell them. But when one of the waiters, having accidentally overturned one of the vases and knocked a flaming bouquet on the carpeted floor of the cabin, snatched it up and dusted it with his big black hand, Sandy gave in, and ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... assert—and all unprejudiced travellers will agree with me—that the world still wants the black hand. Enormous tropical regions yet await the clearing and the draining operations by the lower races, which will fit them to become the dwelling-place of ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the labour leaders who break faith and incite to violence; they are the I. W. W.; they are the Black Hand, the Camorra; they are the penniless who would slay and rob; the landless who would kill and seize; the ignorant, nursing suspicion; the shiftless, brooding crimes to bring them ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... either," Cassel added, from behind the gunfire panel. And that was that. The slender black hand of the indicator rested unwaveringly on zero. The ship's guns were ready, their black mouths open to the stars. A steady hum filled the room. It came from the Attison Detector, and the sound was reassuring. It reinforced the ...
— The Hour of Battle • Robert Sheckley
... courtship of the high-holders, and discover the fall violets under leaves and burrs, for an instant a feeling of spring rushes over us; but the yellow leaves blow against our face, the wind sighs through the cedars, and we realise that the black hand of the frost will soon end the brave ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... of dishing-up best known to himself (but with the aid, no doubt, of the "dam scullion") Manasseh, who had cooked the dinner, also served it; noiselessly, wearing white gloves because his master abominated the sight of a black hand at meals. These gloves had a fascination for Dicky. They attracted his eyes as might the intervolved play of two large white moths in the penumbra beyond the candle-light, between his father's back and the dark ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... might not have made them understand me—it is always probable, it is understood, that a quicknik course in dialects of the past may not give one instant command of spoken communication in the field. I spoke again: "I wish to encounter a representative of the Camorra, in other words the Black Hand, in other words the cruel and sinister Sicilian terrorists named the Mafia. Do you know where these ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... [U.S.], mugging. peculation, embezzlement; fraud &c. 545; larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny, shoplifting. thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia[obs3], den of Cacus, den of thieves. blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand [U.S.]. [person who commits theft] thief &c. 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, pilfer, filch, prig, bag, nim|, crib, cabbage, palm; abstract; appropriate, plagiarize. convey away, carry off, abduct, kidnap, crimp; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... words instead of figures. The grouped letters stood out heavily black, around the pivot-head of the indicator, emphatically symbolic of loud exclamations: AHEAD, ASTERN, SLOW, Half, STAND BY; and the fat black hand pointed downwards to the word FULL, which, thus singled out, captured the eye as a sharp cry ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... excited party. Of Walter Babson she did not think. She stubbornly determined to snatch this time of freedom. Why, of course, she asserted, she could play by herself quite happily! With a spurious gaiety she patted her small black hand-bag. She skipped across to the Sixth Avenue Elevated and went up to the department-store district. She made elaborate plans for the great adventure of shopping. Bessie Kraker had insisted, with the nonchalant shrillness of eighteen, that Una "had ought to wear more color"; and Una had ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the dark shadows were lengthening. The daring pinnacles of Maiauo were thrust up like the mangled fingers of a black hand against the blue sky. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... forth then, and bought several things, a big steamer rug for the car, a pair of long gray mocha gloves to match the hand-bag, a silk umbrella, and for Aunt Ellen a shiny black hand-bag with a number of conveniences in it, and a pair of new black gloves with long, warm wrists tucked inside of it. Then Allison thoughtfully suggested a handsome leather wallet for Uncle Herbert, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Scroggs, "that's what I call him or her or whoever it is. Snake would be a better name," she added, "but I must say the thing looks more like a fish-worm. Now, here," she said, opening her black hand-bag, "is letter ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... tears and choking voice. St. Clare leaned his head on his shoulder, and wrung the hard, faithful, black hand. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... business, and if I don't find out something about this cocaine smuggling, I'll—I'll——" he reflected for a moment and added abruptly, "never go to another dance! It's a syndicate who had this crime carried out; they have their hired assassins like the 'Black Hand' in Sicily. Some of the crew are bound to be in Rangoon, for Roscoe's sentence and execution took place within a few hours. Now it is my aim and intention to discover who they are—and to carry ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... can't understand how such a thing could really be," he said. "We have the black hand, it ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... hyar, Joel," called Creech, sternly. His big, scaly, black hand closed on the boy's shoulder. Joel cringed under it. "Son, you've ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... of them had stroked her black hand quite as Cheri did, nor rested their heads against her knee so confidingly, nor fallen asleep in her arms as he used to do. For Cheri hardly did such things now, since he had become the proud possessor of a gun, and had had his ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... all her miserable rags and absurdities, saw the very poor and pitiful old, old woman, who seemed always to be companionless and alone, would sometimes wonder about her, and, saying a kind and encouraging word, drop a few coins in her slim, black hand without making her lower her basket. Or they would invite her to "call at the house" for some old worn flannels or odds and ends of ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... is too, Uncle Bob," said his master, rising, and grasping in his the big black hand. "Mine is too. I will give Ann her freedom and her baby, and the same amount of money that you give her; that will take her to her husband's relatives, and she can die happy, knowing that her baby ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... George, gently taking her hard, black hand between both his own. 'I'd have given all my fortune to have brought Uncle Tom home with me; but he has gone to a better country.' Mrs. Shelby cried out as if she had been hurt, but Aunt Chloe did not make ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Syndicate Receipts. Ammon's deposit slips and a receipt signed by Mrs. Ammon. A group of H. Huffman Browne's forgeries Last page of the forged Rice will of 1900 The forged cremation letter Forged assignment and Rice signatures First page of the "Black Hand" letter written ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... Toddie, running impetuously toward me, pulling me down, and patting my cheek with his muddy black hand, "I LOVES you for takin' me out ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... Alice. She ran upstairs, and came down with her little black hand-bag, out of which she produced three apples and four sponge-cakes, meant for the railway journey. Amazing woman! Yet in resuming her seat she mistook Herbert's knee for her chair. Amazing woman! Intoxicating mixture of sweet confidingness and unfailing resource. And Si had wanted to prevent ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... of the black paint that disfigured it; his hair, plentifully greased, was braided and ornamented. His leggins were new, and his white blanket was marked according to Indian custom. On it was painted a black hand, that all might know that he had killed his enemy. But for all he did not look either young or handsome, and Harpstenah's young friends were astonished that she witnessed the preparations for her ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... of our churches will not fall behind the humanity of Victor Hugo, who said, "I have had in my hand the gloved and white palm of the upper class and the heavy black hand of the lower class, and have recognized that both are the ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... this way," went on the reporter, lowering his voice. "A Black Hand letter demanding money was received last week by Tommy Spanelli, of the Italian restaurant. It was mailed here; and we have the tip that last evening two foreigners were seen stealing across the old quarry turnpike, and into the woods, as though not wishing to be seen. Of course they may not ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... country, are pronounced Irredentists and filled with aspirations for a larger Italy, so that they have little or nothing in common with anti-Imperialistic America. Nevertheless, so bitter is the feeling which has been aroused that large subsidies are being sent overseas and Black Hand gangs organised to resist the London police. All over the outer suburbs organ-grinders are refusing to move on, and insist on playing well into the early hours of the morning. Deleterious substances of an explosive nature are being mingled with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... shoulders. "Where you like," he said, bending to the little black hand-bag. "Lay them on the ground or bury them, or throw them into the lake, if they're waterproof. Only don't put them too near the house. I don't want any ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... enter into personal association with another, we must not be too cautious in displaying our feeling. If we stand off in cold reserve, the ice, which trembled to thawing, is gripped again by the black hand of frost. There may be a golden moment which has been lost through a foolish reserve. We are so afraid of giving ourselves away cheaply—and it is a proper enough feeling, the value of which we learn through sad experience—but on the whole perhaps ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... a quick movement from his horse, and gripped the twisted old black hand, speechless. This humble welcome on the highway caught at his heart deep down, and the appeal of the colored people to Southerners, who know them, the thrilling appeal of a gentle, loyal race, doomed to live forever behind a veil and hopeless without bitterness, stirred ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... churning jaws of the unholy night above belched a blaze of answering flame, that also wavered like a rent and shaken veil in the grasp of a black hand of cloud. ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... formidable on one side, the apparition on the other! The only ray of comfort was in the face of a stout, comely, rosy maid-servant, who was holding the candle on the threshold, and with one bound the poor traveller dashed past the black hand held out to help her, and rushing up to the girl, caught hold of her, and gasped out, "Oh! What is that? Where am I? Where have ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... creative, conservative, reliable race. On the other hand, the hot temper of the South has been fed by an infusion of Greek and Saracen blood. In Sicily this strain shows at its worst. There the vendetta flourishes; and the Camorra and its sinister analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically remind us that thousands of these swarthy criminals have found refuge in the dark alleys of our cities. Even in America the Sicilian carries a dirk, and the "death sign" in a court room has silenced many a witness. The north Italians readily identify themselves with American ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... passed a third time, at a distance of only a foot or two, I was badly startled. A long black arm reached out from the apparently closed door; a black hand grasped me, lifted me bodily from the floor, and silently drew me into the galley, which was as dark as Egypt. I heard the cook close the door behind me and bolt it and cover the deadlight with a tin pan. What he was up to, I had not the remotest idea; but when he had barricaded ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... w'at's gwine ter happen, I'se real glad to tink it gwine ter be better fer you—gwine ter be better fer eberybody 'bord de CACH'LOT; but I doan keer nuffin 'bout anybody else. So long." He held out his great black hand, and shook mine heartily, while a big tear rolled down his face and fell on the deck. And with that he left me a prey to a very whirlpool of ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... weapons. There was no one near. Banker was wise enough not to call out or even to swear an oath, and Mok had apparently relapsed into the condition of the speechless savage beast. With a wrench which might have torn an ordinary limb from its socket, Banker freed his left arm, but a black hand had grasped it before he could reach ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... no harm is done to the ship. So it is in life. We can live so completely one day at a time that no mournful yesterday can throw its dull shadow on the sunshine of to-day; neither can any frowning to-morrow reach back and with a black hand slap its smiling face. To-day is a sacred thing if we ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... clean and agreeable, carried in his hand a large-sized black hand-satchel which he put down beside ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... say cannot be true, Fernao! How do you know that the sea turns black and dreadful just behind those heavenly clouds? If there are hydras, and gorgons, and sea-snakes that can swallow a ship, and a great black hand reaching up out of a whirlpool to drag men down, why do we never see them here? Look at that sea, can there be anything in the world ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... I lay down and closed my eyes, but sleep would not come. After a time I heard voices, and then I saw a black hand open the tent door and lay a package on the ground. I got up, and saw my name on the package, which proved to contain a new uniform. I dressed and went out. The Doctor's negro servant was cooking ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... notices, the dare-devil. What a detective he'd a made, wouldn't he, if he'd only a-turned his attention that way, and been on the side of the law instead of against it? He walked in bold as brass, sat down, and talked with the superintendent over some cock-and-bull yarn about a 'Black Hand' letter that he said had been sent to him, and asked if he couldn't have police protection whilst he was in town. It wasn't until after he'd left that the super he sees a note on the chair where the blighter had been sitting, and when he opened it, there it ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... all, and understood enough to make her vaguely unhappy. Going home she did not frisk along with Fritz, but walked soberly by Mom Beck's side, holding tight to the friendly black hand. ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the widest panel a strange thing attracted my attention. A black object stood out against a square of red velvet. I went up to it; it was a hand, a human hand. Not the clean white hand of a skeleton, but a dried black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles exposed and traces of old blood on the bones, which were cut off as clean as though it had been chopped off with an axe, near ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant |
