"Bowstring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... discovered that the shaft directed against him by Sir Edward Grey was feathered with his own plumage. To meet our contentions Sir Edward cites our own seizures and our own court decisions. It remains to be seen whether out of strands plucked from the mane and tail of the British lion we can fashion a bowstring which will give effective momentum to a counterbolt launched in the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Paris, or the present constitutional Monarchs of France or England. The proof of this is, that when the people are dissatisfied with their administration, or displeased with the sovereign, they have no difficulty in dispatching him. The twisting of a sash round the neck in Russia, the bowstring in Constantinople or Ispahan, are very effectual monitors—fully as much so as a hostile Parliamentary majority in the house of Commons or Chamber of Deputies. In a word, government in every country being conducted by the few over the many by the hundreds over the hundred thousands, it is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... and internal disorders. The Janizaries could no longer be trusted. They were open to bribes, intriguing, and a source of danger rather than strength; and finally a reforming Sultan touched a mine of gunpowder which led under their barracks, and they were exterminated, the bowstring and sword finishing ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the birds were fighting within thirty yards of the spot where the Bushman lay. The twang of a bowstring might have been heard by one of the koris, had he been listening. The other could not possibly have heard it; for before the sound could have reached him, a poisoned arrow was sticking through his ears. The barb had passed through, and ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... an arrow from twanging bowstring, Pierre Radisson set sail over the roaring seas for the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... the Albany, Piccadilly, with THAT for your pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed out his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Herakles take the city of Pergamos, and with help of Telamon slew the nations of the Meropes, and the herdsman whose stature was as a mountain, Alkyoneus whom he found at Phlegrai, and spared not of his hands the terrible twanging bowstring. ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... they discovered openings through the cord into the pool or lake, that was included between that and the bow; but whether there were or were not such openings is uncertain. We sailed abreast of the low beach or bowstring, within less than a league of the shore, till sun-set, and we then judged ourselves to be about half-way between the two horns. Here we brought-to, and sounded, but found no bottom with one hundred and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... many frantic words he spoke. Thus, without art or rhetoric, roughly dragged forth by head and ears, came his momentous confession into the world. Gnulemah had more than once striven to check it, but in vain. When he had come to an end, and stood tense and quivering as a bowstring whose arrow has just flown, these ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... questions, and how straight they struck home! Yet with that low voice for their bowstring they gave him comfort. Her forays into his confidence not only relieved the loneliness of his too secretive mind but often, as now, involved a sweet yielding of her confidence to him. Yet now a straight answer ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... at once, in spite of my Englishness, and drilled me, and taught me the exercise as it was performed in the Vieille Garden and told me a new fairy-tale, I verily believe, every afternoon for seven years. Scheherezade could do no more for a Sultan, and to save her own neck from the bowstring! ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... "She won't get ahead of me," as he had said at the first; he set his teeth, threw off his hat, and, knitting his brows with a resolute expression, prepared to take steady aim, though his heart beat fast and his thumb trembled as he pressed it on the bowstring. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... long line of lustre through the skies; "'Tis done!" he shouts, "the mighty Monarch feels!" And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels; Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves, His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves. 245 —Pierced on his throne the slarting Thunderer turns, Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns; Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze The bright Intruder ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... some the rear; Their remedies to reinforce and vary, Came surgeon eke, and eke apothecary; Till the tired Monarch, though of words grown chary, Yet dropt, to recompense their fruitless labor, Some hint about a bowstring or a saber. There lack'd, I promise you, no longer speeches, To rid the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... went with her to the stream's bank, and as he stood there his keen eyes saw something move across the short grass at the water's edge. Promptly he put an arrow to his bowstring and took deft aim. The shaft sped quickly to its mark, plunged into the body of a stoat, and pinned the animal to ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... by whipping him on the opposite of his neck. Presently the plucky savage's arm began to move. Booth watched him intently, and saw that he had fixed an arrow in his bow under the pony's shoulder; just as he was on the point of letting go the bowstring, with the head of the arrow not three feet from Booth's breast as he leaned out of the hole, the latter struck frantically at the weapon, dodged back into the wagon, and up came the Indian. Whenever Booth looked out, down went the Indian on the other side of his pony, to rise again in a moment, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... of a pair of peculiar goat-skin bellows, provided with wooden nozzles tipped with iron. A catgut bowstring drills for boring holes, and screw-drills for cutting threads, hammers, and an anvil. A rude but ingenious forge is constructed out of a few handfuls of stiff mud, and, building a charcoal fire, they spend the evening in sharpening and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... each man alone A single bowstring uses, and that his own; What matters it to any the worth that's buried? By its own waves the current ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... frantic follies and its besotted sins. Memory omitted nothing. Not a blot upon those sordid pages was spared him. It was not possible for an instant to turn away his eyes. His mental clarity was unrelieved by weariness. No shadow dimmed the keen crystal of his brain. He was at tension, like a bowstring that is stretched continually. He realised this, thinking: "Presently I will cut the bow-string, and the bow shall have rest! Even if my once-boasted will-power reasserted itself—even if I rose triumphant for the second time, cured of my vile craving, I do not ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... in sight, but this time there were only two of them, as the youngest had stayed at home. The air was warm and damp, and the snow soft and slushy, and the elder brother's bowstring hung loose, while the bow of the younger caught in a tree and snapped in half. At that moment the dogs began to bark loudly, and the bear rushed out of the thicket and set off in the direction of the mountain. ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... any fellow would choose for fun, not if he were the party to be tossed, though it is a beanfeast for the onlookers. They manage it this way. A hide, freshly stripped from a bullock, smoking, bloody, and limber as a bowstring, is requisitioned; the hairy side is turned downwards, two strong men get hold of each corner, cutting holes in the green hide for their hands to have a good grip; they allow the hide to sag until it forms a sort of cradle, into which the unlucky ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... for the leader's heart, but his fingers could not loose their grip upon the arrow, and the sheep passed by unharmed. Bilh Ahati{COMBINING BREVE}ni scrambled up over the rim of the canon and ran to get ahead of them again, but the bowstring would not leave his fingers as they passed. A third effort, and a fourth, to kill the game brought the same result. Bilh Ahati{COMBINING BREVE}ni cursed himself and the sheep, but ceased suddenly, for whom should he see but four gods, Yebichai, appear before him, who had transformed themselves ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... the air shudder. From within the houses the dogs answered with mad clamor. A door would open to show first a long seal gun, then a fisherman, then a fool dog that darted between the fisherman's legs and capered away, ki-yi-ing a challenge to the universe. A silence, tense as a bowstring; a sudden yelp—Hui-hui, as the fisherman whistled to the dog that was being whisked away over the snow with a grip on his throat that prevented any answer; then the fisherman would wait and call in vain, and shiver, and go back to the ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... mistress who died strangely, swiftly, conveniently, as soon so he had wearied of her, and a new favourite had begun to exercise her influence. Such things are done in the East—dynasties annihilated, kingdoms overthrown, poison or bowstring used at will, to gratify a profligate's passion, or pay for a spendthrift's extravagances. Such things were done when that man was Governor of Madras as were never done by an Englishman in India before his time. He went there fettered by no prejudices—he was more Mussulman ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... mosques were reduced to frightful extremities. Many perished raving mad, fancying themselves swimming in boundless seas, yet unable to assuage their thirst. Many of the soldiers lay parched and panting along the battlements, no longer able to draw a bowstring or hurl a stone; while above five thousand Moors, stationed upon a rocky height which overlooked part of the town, kept up a galling fire into it with slings and crossbows, so that the marques of Cadiz was obliged to heighten the battlements by using ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... was a swineherd in Normandy, while mine were Thanes in England, and their courteous manners have descended to you," retorted Martin; whereupon Drogo laid his bowstring ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... and arrows, and were shooting squirrels. We gave them an alphabet card. Most of the Indians just round the Post are Roman Catholics, but those scattered over the lake, about 500 in number, are nearly all pagans. The name of the chief with whom we talked this morning is David Winchaub (Bowstring). ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... tender and that Moabdar was jealous. The envious man brought false reports to the king. The monarch now thought of nothing but in what manner he might best execute his vengeance. He one night resolved to poison the queen and in the morning to put Zadig to death by the bowstring. The orders were given to a merciless eunuch, who commonly executed his acts of vengeance. There happened at that time to be in the king's chamber a little dwarf, who, though dumb, was not deaf. He was allowed, on account of his insignificance, to go ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... also a quiver of poisoned arrows and a bamboo* [The bamboo, of which the quiver is made, is thin and light: it is brought from Assam, and called Tulda, or Dulwa, by the Bengalees.] bow across his back. On his right wrist is a curious wooden guard for the bowstring; and a little pouch, containing aconite poison and a few common implements, is suspended to his girdle. A hat he seldom wears, and when he does, it is often extravagantly broad and flat-brimmed, with a small hemispherical crown. It is ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... have tane brave Hobie Noble, Wi' his ain bowstring they band him sae; And I wat heart was ne'er sae sair, As when his ain five band ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against Thee, They imagined a mischievous device, Which they could not execute. For Thou wilt make them turn their back, Thou wilt make ready Thy bowstring against their faces. Be Thou exalted Jehovah in Thine own strength; We will sing and celebrate ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of the bowstring, and Photogen darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She fell down in utter darkness. All around ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of rattan about 3 millimeters broad. This is attached to the lower end of the stock by a simple series of loops. To the upper extremity it is attached by a loop that slips along the stock into the upper notch when the bow is strung for shooting. It is needless to remark that the bowstring is about 2 or 3 centimeters shorter than the stock, which in the moment of stringing must be bent to enable the upper extremity of the string to reach the upper notch and thereby acquire a sufficient tension to propel ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... gives this bow to thee, wherewith in the chase striking many a beast he had luck in his aim: since never did the arrow leap wandering from the curved horn or speed vainly from his hand; for as often as the inevitable bowstring rang, so often he brought down his prey in air or thicket; wherefore to thee, O Phoebus, he brings this Lyctian weapon as an offering, having wound it round with ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... Wu-ch'ang, he transformed the character of the people by 'proprieties' and music, and was praised by the master. After the death of Confucius, Chi K'ang asked Yen how that event had made no sensation like that which was made by the death of Tsze-ch'an, when the men laid aside their bowstring rings and girdle ornaments, and the women laid aside their pearls and ear-rings, and the voice of weeping was heard in the lanes for three months. Yen replied, 'The influences of Tsze-ch'an and ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... done, and on a second trial it was found that the arrow went straight to the mark. But here the chief, the old White Bear, interposed and said that it was necessary that they should have long claws in order to be able to climb trees. "One of us has already died to furnish the bowstring, and if we now cut off our claws we shall all have to starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth and claws which nature has given us, for it is evident that man's weapons were ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... of trying to rally the fugitives, at once ordered the men-at-arms to fall upon them. The cavalry, the heavy troops, and the cross-bow men, soon formed a wild and reeling crowd, amid which the English poured a continued flight of unerring arrows, and not a single bowstring was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... camper, and saw too late the folly of neglecting Raften's advice to have a big Dog in camp. He glanced around and would have run, but the tramp was too quick for him and grabbed him by the collar. "Oh, no you don't; hold on, sonny. I'll fix you so you'll do as you're told." He cut the bowstring from its place, and violently throwing Yan down, he tied his feet so that they had ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... have nothing that I can call my own except, for the moment, the air that I breathe. Oh, for an hour of the old liberty and power! It would amuse me to see the faces of ENVER and of my wretched brother MOHAMMED as I ordered them to execution—them and their gang of villainous parasites. By the bowstring of my fathers, but that would be a great and worthy killing! Pardon the fond day-dreams of a poor and lonely old man whose only crime has been that he loved his country too well and treated his enemies with a kindness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... was the only thing they could get out of her. Her little body was taut as a bowstring, her lips tight. They offered her excuses; the lady mother slept; now she was rising and must be clothed. And then at last they told her, because of the hunted look in ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... have very unsettled times of it. At every turning we meet people, or see their villages; all armed with bows and arrows. The bows are unusually long: I measured one made of bamboo, and found that along the bowstring it measured six feet four inches. Many carry large knives of fine iron; and indeed the metal is abundant. Young men and women wear the hair long, a mass of small ringlets comes down and rests on the shoulders, giving them ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... he drew together the notch [of the arrow] and the ox-hide string; the string, indeed, he brought near to his breast, and the barb to the bow. But after he had bent the great bow into a circle, the bow twanged, the bowstring rang loudly, and the sharp-pointed shaft bounded forth, impatient to wing its ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... hills around Retain the rending tumult; all the air Clangs in the conflict of the clashing war; But firm undaunted as a shelvy strand That meets the surge, the bold Peruvians stand, With steady aim the sounding bowstring ply, And showers of arrows thicken thro the sky; When each grim host, in closer conflict join'd, Clench the dire ax and cast the bow behind; Thro broken ranks sweep wide their slaughtering course. Now struggle back, now sidelong ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... penitent, looking-glass, hornpipe, necklace, indolent, lighthouse, Hamlet, pantry, phantom, windfall, sweepstake, sackcloth, antidote, antimony, pearl powder, kingfisher, football, housekeeping, infancy, snowball, definite, bowstring, carpet, Sunday, Shylock, earwig, matrimony, cowhiding, welcome, friendship, horsemanship, coltsfoot, bridegroom, housemaid, ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... radiant with a new pride and joy. The storm within me had shifted my whole being from one centre to another. Like the Greek maidens of old, I fain would cut off my long, resplendent tresses to make a bowstring for my hero. Had my outward ornaments been connected with my inner feelings, then my necklet, my armlets, my bracelets, would all have burst their bonds and flung themselves over that assembly like a shower of meteors. Only some ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... inch from the pointed end. When the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch the thread will be stretched above the curved needle, something like a bowstring, leaving a small open space between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin, filled with thread, is then made to pass entirely through this open space, between the needle and the thread which it carries; and when ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the sand he grasped his fire stick in his left hand after placing the bowstring in position. With a shell over the upper end of the stick, he sawed away busily for a moment. A tiny wreath of smoke eddied away from the ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... muscle in Jean's body became as taut as a bowstring. He hunched a little forward, as if about to leap upon the other, and strike him down. And then, all at once, he relaxed. His hands unclenched. ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... advanced from the rest, stood the captain, with the fatal bowstring hanging carelessly on his arm, and his eyes intent to catch the slightest gesture of the king. "Behold!" said ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... direction, but he had not gone more than a hundred yards when another arrow struck his cap, taking it off. He staggered, then, taking a new direction, ran a few strides, then stopped in hesitation, seeing an Indian rise to his knees, fixing an arrow to his bowstring. ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... not many months ago, as he sat in his palace, crowned and dreary and trying to cheat me out of my fair profit on some emeralds,—'Jurgen, I cannot sleep of nights, because of that fool Alexius, who comes into my room with staring eyes and the bowstring still about his neck. And my Varangians must be in league with that silly ghost, because I constantly order them to keep Alexius out of my bedchamber, and they do not obey me, Jurgen. To be King of the East is not to the purpose, Jurgen, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... on in the ellipse, and another man fitted an arrow to his bowstring, and as he rode by ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... where many a disobedient Pasha has awaited the decree of banishment issued against him by his imperious master. There, too, he was shipped on board the vessel destined to carry him into exile; or, if condemned to expiate his offences with his life, it was there the bowstring was applied. Hence this entrance is known by the appellation of the Pasha's gate. A little further on, we observed a small low door in the wall, scarcely high enough to admit an ordinary sized man. Through this opening the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... no foreshaft. The sting-ray spine, which makes an excellent natural projectile point, was let directly into the split end of the cane, and was secured by cord binding (see "Haftings"). Instead of the usual nock in the butt end of the shaft for a bowstring, there is a cuplike depression (fig. 1). This suggests, of course, that this may have been a dart for use with a thrower or atlatl. Although that weapon is unreported in the Spanish sources on central and northern Baja California, dart-throwers were reported ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey
... the open, but they always seemed to be stealing something which belonged to the men who were engaged in the struggle. And apart from this they were so indifferent in their practice of archery that they drew the bowstring only to the breast[5], so that the missile sent forth was naturally impotent and harmless to those whom it hit[6]. Such, it is evident, was the archery of the past. But the bowmen of the present time go into battle wearing corselets and fitted out with ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... 'for divine inspiration.' Still if he had been as thoroughly skilled as he professed to have been, he should have shown himself a humane as well as an innovating sovereign. Those who assisted him in his reforms, he rewarded with the bowstring. His character was blackened by ingratitude, an instinctive vice in oriental rulers. Obstinate as he was suspicious, deceitful as he was cunning, he could not rule his own passions, much less could he control the corrupt morals of his people. He was to an extraordinary degree ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... leaf could move on the ground now—not a bush might bend or a bird pass and escape being seen by the four sharp eyes that peered from the brush in the direction indicated by the sound of the breaking stick. Two hearts beat loudly as Fine Bow fitted his arrow to the bowstring. Tense and expectant they waited—yes, it was a deer—a buck, too, and he was coming down the trail, alert and watchful—down the trail that he had often travelled and knew so well. Yes, he had followed his ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... himself from head to foot. What was that Chippy had worked in among his sobs and moans? B.P.—the motto of their order—'Be Prepared.' Dick held himself tense as a bowstring, ready for anything. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... one about," he answered. "I heard the twang of a bowstring and the swish of an arrow over my head. Some ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... of some ancient breechin. His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage—a sort of terrible grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the strap across his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all round, "Did you ever see the like of this?" He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... blazed as with a hundred suns, and, O son of Kunti, with one hundred moons, and thousands and ten thousands of stars! And then none could ascertain whether it was day or night, or distinguish the points of the horizon. And, becoming bewildered, I fixed on my bowstring the weapon called Pragnastra. And, O son of Kunti, the weapon went like unto flakes of pure cotton blown away by the winds! And a great fight took place, calculated to make the down on one's body stand on end. And O best of monarchs, having regained light, I again fought ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... him and laid her hand tremulously on his shoulder, and looked down at him with piteous, pleading eyes. No Circassian slave, afraid of bowstring and sack, could have entreated her master's clemency with ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... that the feathers were glued to the wood exactly as they are with ourselves. The notch was somewhat large, projecting beyond the line of the shaft—a construction rendered necessary by the thickness of the bowstring., which was seldom less than of the arrow it-self. [PLATE CV., ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... fair proffer," said the prince, "the provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... angrily. "Find out, John, and he shall have a bowstring about his back. Point out the man who stripped you, my little lad," he continued, ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... terrified at the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... the dull half-musical sound of a bowstring, and to Brace's horror one of their flying men made a spasmodic jump into the air and came down upon hands and knees, his nearest messmates passing on some twenty yards before they could check their speed; and then, in the midst of the thrill of excitement which ran through ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... kissing them wildly, and betraying in her childish grief all the deep, sensitive, despairing sorrow of a woman. The villain before her might have often beaten her, debased her immeasurably, but the mysterious cord that linked their beating hearts was unbroken, though it sang like a bowstring in the gusty horror that swept between, and stretched to attenuation as the elder spirit sank, groaning, into the abyss of its own wickedness. Hot tears gushed from her eyes, her little throat was swollen with the choking ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... into which men will purchase with millions of chances against them. In Turkey, where the place, where the fortune, where the head itself, are so insecure, that scarcely any have died in their beds for ages, so that the bowstring is the natural death of Bashaws, yet in no country is power and distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in all) sought for with such boundless avidity, as if the value of place was enhanced by the danger and insecurity of its tenure. Nothing will ever make a seat in ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts) during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though otherwise a decent man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the cimeter, he had so thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work remained, and hardly ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... a bowstring twanged to the fore and a young girl stumbled across Jack Battle's feet with a scream that rings, and rings, and rings in memory like the tocsin of a horrible dream. She was wounded in the shoulder. Getting to her knees ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... heavy twine, to which the bowstrings could be tied after the bow was all wound. The stock of our crossbow was cut out of a board of soft wood 1 inch thick to as near the shape of a gun as we could get it. A hole was drilled through the muzzle end to receive the bow, and then the bowstring was tied fast. Along the upper edge of the barrel a V-shaped channel was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, through this channel, ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... under her wet, dark hair. She seemed to be a Caucasian girl—maybe a Georgian. She wore a small gold cross which hung from a gold cord around her neck. There was another, and tighter, cord around her neck, too. I cut the silk bowstring and closed and bound her eyes with my handkerchief before I rowed out a little farther and lowered her into the deep channel which cuts eastward here like the scimitar of that true believer, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She saw—so she said—a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; and when people laughed at her words ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... seen her With that high, laughing, turbulent head of hers Thrown backward, and the bowstring at her ear, Or sitting at the fire with those grave eyes Full of good counsel as it were with wine, Or when love ran through all the ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... were kept in prison, till they grew Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne, One or the other, but which of the two Could yet be known unto the fates alone; Meantime the education they went through Was princely, as the proofs have always shown; So that the heir apparent still was found No less deserving to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... every male in the tribe over twelve years of age to provide himself with a rifle. The bow, as now made, is a single piece of mulberry or other elastic wood and is from four to six feet in length; the bowstring is made of twisted deer rawhide; the arrows are of cane and of hard wood and vary in length from two to four feet; they are, as a rule, tipped with a sharp conical roll of sheet iron. The skill of the young men in the use of the ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... down inside the other, and sat for a moment in silence as tense with stirring possibilities to the others as to himself. The Judge felt moved to a most unusual sensation, as if he were a loosened bowstring beside this twanging, taut intensity. He felt slightly dismayed to have his unspoken principles carried to this nth power. He had given the best of himself, all his thoughts, illusions, hopes, endeavors, to his ideal of success, but his ambition had never been concentrated ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... should lie under the odour of piracy too; it will give Richcourt opportunities of saying very severe things to you!—Barbarossa our Dey is not returned yet-we fear he is going to set his grandson(599) up in a seraglio; and as we have not, among other Mahometan customs, copied the use of the bowstring for repressing the luxuriancy of the royal branches, we shall be quite overrun with young ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... thou pullest not the long bow ere the bowstring be twisted, or ever the arrow be at hand—send not in thy bill ere the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... trembling tongue, the longing tone, Imploringly ask why They can not be as happy now As in the days gone by. And two more hearts, tumultuous With overflowing joy, Are dancing to the music Which that dear, provoking boy Is twanging on his bowstring, As, fluttering his wings, He sends his love-charged arrows While merrily be sings: "Ho! ho! my dainty maiden, It surely can not be You are thinking you are master Of your heart, when it is me." And another gleaming arrow Does the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... this vile climate; particularly will it keep him from his worst intoxicant lhiamba (Cannabis sativa), a plant which grows wild on the South-West Coast and on the West for all I know, as well as the African or bowstring hemp (Sanseviera guiniensis). The plant that produces the lhiamba is a nettle-like plant growing six to ten feet high, and the natives collect the tops of the stems, with the seed on, in little bundles and dry them. It is evidently the seeds which are regarded by them as being the important ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... rage and pain he bored in. He had but one chance—to get this shadow in his gorilla-like arms. He lacked mental flexibility. An idea, getting into his head, stuck; it was not adjustable. Like an arrow sped from the bowstring, it had to fulfill its destiny. It never occurred to him to take to his heels, to get space between himself and this enemy he had so woefully underestimated. Ten feet, and he might have been able to whirl, draw his pistol, ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... no sign of her suffering and her terror, though her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and her mouth had grown stiff with its effort to command. The tension was torture. Her heart strings were drawn to the snapping point; her mind was a bowstring never relaxed, till every fiber of her resistant ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... saints and sages have surrendered the merits of their life-long penance at the feet of a woman. I broke my bow in two and burnt my arrows in the fire. I hated my strong, lithe arm, scored by drawing the bowstring. O Love, god Love, thou hast laid low in the dust the vain pride of my manlike strength; and all my man's training lies crushed under thy feet. Now teach me thy lessons; give me the power of the weak and the weapon of the ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... King's enemies; the people fall under Thee.' That is all that that ancient singer could conceive of the triumphant King of the world, the Messiah; a conqueror, enthroned in His chariot, and the twanging bowstring, drawn by His strong hand, impelling the arrow that lodged in the heart of His foes. And here is the fulfilment. 'Go ye into the village over against you, and ye shall find a colt tied ... And they set Him thereon.' Christ's kingdom, like its King, has no power but gentleness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... feverishly restless, watching the movements of the other people. Finally I went up to my room and sat down by the windows, staring out. There came a little tap at the unlocked door and in an instant, like the go of a taut bowstring, I was up and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... bowstring. I felt myself turned inside out, passed through a small sieve, and poured back into shape. The entire bow wall-screen was full of Earth. Something was wrong all right, and this time it was much, much worse. We'd ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... less than a century disposed of the throne of its former tyrant. The unseen hand of fate gave to the discharged arrow a higher flight, and quite a different direction from that which it first received from the bowstring. In the womb of happy Brabant that liberty had its birth which, torn from its mother in its earliest infancy, was to gladden the so despised Holland. But the enterprise must not be less thought of because its issue differed from the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... progress of the Austrian armies then invading Naples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly Hospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the gentleman to whom the drama of "Hellas" is dedicated. Prince Mavrocordato was warmed by those aspirations for the independence ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... are." He dropped into Flint's big half-couch and puffed for a while in silence. "Well, since you're all here, I may confess that I'm the mute with the bowstring." ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... river's brink at night the buffalo might stray, Or elephant, the stream to drink,—intent my savage game to slay. Then of a water cruse, as slow it filled, the gurgling sound I heard, Nought saw I, but the sullen low of elephant that sound appeared. The swift well-feathered arrow I upon the bowstring fitting straight, Towards the sound the shaft let fly, ah, cruelly deceived by fate! The winged arrow scarce had flown, and scarce had reached its destined aim, 'Ah me, I'm slain,' a feeble moan in trembling human accents came. 'Ah, whence hath come this fatal shaft against a ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... body, bayonet, eviscerate; put to the sword, put to the edge of the sword. shoot dead; blow one's brains out; brain, knock on the head; stone, lapidate[obs3]; give a deathblow; deal a deathblow; give a quietus, give a coupe de grace. behead, bowstring, electrocute, gas &c. (execute) 972. hunt, shoot &c. n. cut off, nip in the bud, launch into eternity, send to one's last account, sign one's death warrant, strike the death knell of. give no quarter, pour out blood like water; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... turned my haggard, burning eyes upon her murderers—four of them there were and all staring into those cruel, black waters below and not a word betwixt them. Suddenly the black-bearded man snapped his fingers and laughed even as my bowstring twanged; then I saw him leap backwards, screaming with pain, his shoulder transfixed by my arrow. Immediately (and ere I might shoot again) his fellows dragged him down, and lying prone on their bellies let ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course through the air, as a very little boat which I saw coming through the water toward us at that instant, under the direction of a single ferryman, who was crying out, "Art thou then ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... arrangements threaten the enemy's solar plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the "blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive at after the war, it does not seem to have been so ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... never-enough-to-be-lamented lock of hair. Other danger awaits him, for "to be strangled was not much better than to be starved; and certainly with half a dozen highly respectable females clinging round his neck, he was not reminded, for the first time in his life, what a domestic bowstring is an affectionate woman." He is next joined by an "influential personage," who informs him that he is in Hubbabub (London)—the largest city, not only that exists, but that ever did exist, and the capital of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... slender, square-jawed man of thirty-six. His forehead is high and broad and his hair is worn longer than that of other young men—parted on the side and brushed back. He has thin lips and a mouth of unusual width. His mouth-line is as straight as a bowstring, and when he speaks, which is often, or smiles, which is not so frequent, he shows an even line of large ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... heard the great clamor, The war-trumpet winding. One did the Geat-prince [50] Sunder from earth-joys, with arrow from bowstring, 50 From his sea-struggle tore him, that the ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... a bowstring a bowstring was out of the question; and Racine, with triumphant art, has managed to introduce the periphrasis in such a way that it exactly expresses the state of mind of the Sultana. She begins with revenge and rage, until she reaches the ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... panzers arrows rattle, Where our Norse king stands in battle; From the helmets blood-streams flow, Where our Norse king draws his bow: His bowstring twangs,—its biting hail Rattles against the ring-linked mail. Up in the land in deadly strife Our Norse king took ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... I wavered, as well as I might. But I was filled with longing to be gathered to the company of the Divine ones, and I knew that I had no evil in me, and desired to do only the thing that is just. Therefore, having with so much labour drawn the bowstring to my ear, I was fain to let fly the shaft. "Lead on," I cried with a loud voice; "lead on, thou ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... wheeled his horse, buried his spurs deep into his flanks, and, pressing his thighs to the saddle, galloped off in an opposite direction. The bull dashed on as before. In a moment the lariat was stretched. The sudden jerk caused the thong to vibrate like a bowstring, and the bull lay motionless on the grass. The shock almost dragged the mustang upon ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... to get out the stresses in girders of the bowstring form, the author was not satisfied with the common formulae for the diagonal braces, which, owing to the difficulty of apportioning the stresses amongst five members meeting in one point, were to a large extent based on an assumption as to the course taken by the stresses. As far as he could ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... wondrous well, Till his arrows were all gone, And the fire so fast upon him fell, That his bowstring burnt in two. The sparkles burnt, and fell upon, Good William of Cloudeslie! But then was he a woeful man, and said, "This is a coward's ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... "shaft" is a holder for the missile, and it (not the missile) is driven by the bowstring. When the holder stops, the ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... foolish enough not to take all precaution against young Aaron. At the yard fence he stopped, seeing Mavis under an apple-tree with one hand clutching a low bough and her tense face lifted to the west. He could see that the hand was clenched tightly, for even the naked forearm was taut as a bowstring. The sun was going down in the little gap, above it already one pale star was swung, and upon it her eyes seemed to be fixed. She heard his step and he knew it, for he saw her face flush, but without looking ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... bearing, gesture, countenance, each in turn, all of them together, are to the spoken words, or, rather than that, it should be said, to the thoughts and emotions of which those articulate sounds are but the winged symbols, as to the barbed and feathered arrows are the bowstring. How essential every external of this kind is, as affording some medium of communication between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated upon the instant by the rough and ready argument of the reductio ad absurdum. Without insisting, for example, upon the impossibility ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... bowstring speed, a shaft, Through the camp was spread the rumor, And the soldiers, as they quaffed Flemish beer at dinner, laughed At the ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... for a death shot, they withdraw again to the far ends of the ring. Advancing once more each one throws the drawn bow and arrow upward, then toward the ground, calling heaven and earth to witness his vow to kill the other. Presently one gets a favorable opportunity, his bowstring twangs, and his opponent falls to the ground. The victor utters a cry of triumph, dances up to the body of his fallen foe, and cuts off the head with his bolo. He beckons and cries out to the relatives of the dead man to come and avenge the deed. Nobody appearing, he bears ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... walls once safe restored. Compressing next nerve and notch'd arrow-head He drew back both together, to his pap Drew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow, And when the horn was curved to a wide arch, 145 He twang'd it. Whizz'd the bowstring, and the reed Leap'd off, impatient for the distant throng. Thee, Menelaus, then the blessed Gods Forgat not; Pallas huntress of the spoil, Thy guardian then, baffled the cruel dart. 150 Far as a mother wafts the fly ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... to shoot first, and he pulled back his bowstring and braced himself to let go. Right here it may be said that at thirty yards an arrow propelled by an Indian-made bow is just as deadly as a bullet, if it hits its mark. But Injun shot a little high ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... beautiful custom." The right of acting as umpire in wrestling-matches was vested in his family, that the "Driving Wind" might for future generations preside over athletic sports. In ancient days, the prizes for the three champion wrestlers were a bow, a bowstring, and an arrow: these are still brought into the ring, and, at the end of the bout, the successful competitors go through a variety ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... ignored his slaves, sitting heavily on the dune until he regained his breath after the stalk. Then after cocking the crossbow again he stalked over to the beast and with his knife cut out the quarrel, notching it against the bowstring still dripping with blood. ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... light-stock and in which the red heat arises. When fire is to be lighted by means of this implement, the lower part of the drill pin is daubed over with a little train-oil, one foot holds the light-stock firm against the ground, the bowstring is put round the drill pin, the left hand presses the pin with the drill block against the light-stock, and the bow is carried backwards and forwards, not very rapidly, but evenly, steadily, and uninterruptedly, until fire appears. A couple of minutes are generally required to ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... in scarlet. Everything was scarlet about him, his moccasins, his naked skin, the fantastic cloak and blanket, girdle, knife-hilt, axe shaft, and the rattling quiver on his back—nay, the very arrows in it were set with scarlet feathers, and the looped bowstring was whipped with ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... sufficiently long upon men, Providence, like the sultan to his viziers, sends them the bowstring by a mute, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... twain his bowstring, and they cut his pond'rous mace, Slew his steeds and chariot-driver, streaked ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... Rainy River, about 20 miles from the head of Rainy River. It stands on a point of land where the Missachappa or Bowstring River and the Rainy River join. There is a dense forest covering the river bank where the mound is found. The owner of the land has made a small clearing, which now shows the mound to some extent to one standing on the deck of a steamer passing on the ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... gracious sovereign of the Middle Kingdom had confiscated the property of Li's family, that his wife had died of sorrow, in misery, and that his son, Li, having taken the liberty to complain of the glorious emperor's severity, suffered death by the bowstring, as is proper and reasonable in all ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... stout and serviceable. I knew, somehow, that they had been shooting at the butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a noise of men thereabout, and even now and again when the wind set from that quarter the twang of the bowstring and the plump of ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... come out for football, but displayed an aversion for violent physical contention of any sort, especially fighting; which caused him to be branded as a coward. But the time came when, unable longer to endure the insults heaped upon him, the restraint of the young Texan snapped like a bowstring, and the boys of Oakdale found that a sleeping lion had suddenly awakened. Then it came to be known that Grant had inherited a most unfortunate family failing, a terrible temper, which, when uncontrolled, was liable to lead him into extreme acts of violence; and it was this temper ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... O, what shall we do? Let's cut his bowstring," said Ting-a-ling, in great excitement, and drawing his little sword. The green fairy, although polite, could not help laughing at this idea; but Ting-a-ling slipped softly to where the bow was lying, ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... seals and their arms, converted their masters' substance into their own, and, as it were, sucked them dry under the shelter of those repealed laws. The Roman Empire, formerly sold by auction to the highest bidder, and the Turkish emperors, whose necks are exposed every day to the bowstring, show us in very bloody characters the blindness of those men that make authority ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and get reeds out of the edge of the long lake, to tie nails in the ends and use for arrows. I used to bind the nails in with whitey-brown thread well beeswaxed, and then dress the notch at the other end to keep the bowstring from splitting it up. I've hit rabbits with an arrow before now, though they always run into their holes. You can shoot with a bow and arrow at a ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... son, sprang up on the roof, and cuts asunder Gunnar's bowstring. Gunnar clutches the bill with both hands, and turns on him quickly and drives it through him, and hurls ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... "Ping!" went the bowstring. The arrow seemed to sing through the frosty air, and, a second later, the silence was broken by cheer after cheer. The apple lay upon the ground pierced right ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Giraffe. "And just make up your minds I'm going to do that same stunt yet. Why, half a dozen times already I've been pretty close to getting fire; but something always seemed to happen just at the last minute. Once my bowstring sawed through. Another time the plaguey stick burst. Then Bumpus had to fall all over me just when I felt sure the spark was going to come in the tinder. And the last time, you may remember, when I sang out that ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... on the first demonstration I make in favor of Mehemet Ali, the Sultan send me the bowstring, and make ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dispose the officers according to their rank; whereas the British seem to take a delight in confounding and mixing together, the officers with their men. As to their punishments among themselves, they will cut off a man's head; and strangle him with a bowstring, in a summary manner; but a Turk, or Algerine, would sicken at the sight of a whipping in the navy; and in the army of the Christian king of England. There is no nation upon this globe of earth that treats its soldiers and sailors with that degree of barbarity common to their camps, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the Barbary Coast; Democratic gospel pure and undefiled; Janus-faced double; Good Lord, good devil; all things to all men; God-fearing patriots; come what may; all things are fair in love or war; the silken bowstring; the unwary voter; bait to catch gudgeons; to live by or to die by; these obsequious courtiers; Guttenburg; rubber stamp; at all hazards; the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I quote the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my dear sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... pretty miss; but I had other measures. Apollo twangs not ever on the same bowstring. Did my sudorific work well, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... such intense and overweening personality), it must yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out of that primitive silence and solitude in which only the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in contemporary British literature is there another writer whose bowstring has such ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... ascended a very strong rapid and arrived at a range of three steep cascades situated in the bend of the river. Here we made a portage of one thousand three hundred yards over a rocky hill which received the name of the Bowstring Portage from its shape. We found that the Indians had greatly the advantage of us in this operation; the men carried their small canoes, the women and children the clothes and provisions, and at the end of the portage they were ready to embark, whilst it was necessary for our people to return four ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... law until his sovereign could be assured of the inevitable consequences of enforcing it. The pacha of a Turkish despot, who had allowed himself this latitude for the interests of his master, might, indeed, have reckoned on the bowstring. But the example of Mendoza, the prudent viceroy of Mexico who adopted this course in a similar crisis, and precisely at the same period, showed its propriety under existing circumstances. The ordinances were suspended ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Ibrahim Pasha's harem. But the moment it was conveyed to her, she summoned to her presence three black slaves, belonging to the corps of the bostanjis, or gardeners, who also served as executioners, when a person of rank was to be subjected to the process of bowstring, or when any dark deed was to be accomplished in silence and with caution. Terrible appendages to the household of Ottoman sultans were the black slaves belonging to that corps—like snakes, they insinuated themselves, noiselessly and ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the man, from whom he stole the ear of soft maize, now snatches from his hungry lips the red-gilled mushroom, and he, into whose crystal stream he threw impure substances, in revenge, strikes from his lip the gourd of crystal water. The good hunter, whose bowstring he enviously cut, fillips him on the forehead; the warrior whose spear he broke when no human eye beheld him, now, informed of the unmanly deed by the Spirit who sees all, spits in his face, as a coward should be spat upon. The soul of the horse ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Felice. On the opposite side of the Adige, upon the plain, with their backs against the city walls, are two other fortresses, about a mile distant from each other, one called the Old the other the New Citadel, and a wall extends between them that may be compared to a bowstring, of which the city wall is the arc. The space comprehended within this segment is very populous, and is called the Borgo of St. Zeno. Niccolo Piccinino designed to capture these fortresses and the Borgo, and he hoped to succeed without much difficulty, as well on account of the ordinary negligence ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... bowstring was not in his thought, When, breaking truce, he so unjustly fought; Made the world tremble with a numerous host, And of undoubted ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... that region where the world is most alive.[1] Her silence, and her transmuted countenance imposed silence on my eager mind, which already had new questions in advance. And even as an arrow, that hits the mark before the bowstring is quiet, so we ran into the second realm.[2] Here I saw my lady so joyous as she entered into the light of that heaven, that thereby the planet became more lucent. And if the star war, changed and smiled, what did I become, who even ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... Pacha was not quite such an easy prey. The kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was instantly laid dead at his feet by a pistol-shot. "Wretch!" cried Mouktar, roaring like a bull escaped from the butcher, "dost thou think an Arnaout dies like an eunuch? I also am a Tepelenian! To arms, comrades! they would slay us!" As he spoke, he rushed, sword in hand, upon the Turks, and, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... darkly. "There is a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud, a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou knowest the governor of the prisons—has he not need of something? Hath he never ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... inflicting suffering upon some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it but wretches condemned to death. And, even then, when these had "had enough," they were always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or bowstring, left for their use at the ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... fist, palm upward, at arm's length before the body, the right as if grasping the bowstring and drawn back. (Shoshoni and Banak I.) "From their peculiar manner of holding the long bow horizontally ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... ta'en brave Hobbie Noble, Wi's ain bowstring they band him sae; But his gentle heart was ne'er sae sair, As when his ain five ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... The white man had come out by the tower, was now kneeling in the open; at the same moment a man slipped down a rope from the tower-top. Before he had touched earth they saw the kneeling man pull a bowstring to his ear and let fly. Next the fellow on the rope, touching ground, ran fleetly forward and, springing on the white-robed man, drove him to the earth. They saw ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... ramparts, ordered the garrison to allow the towers to advance unmolested by the machines to within bow-shot. Then taking up a long bow, which might have graced the hand of Robin Hood, and choosing two shafts of a yard in length, he drew the bowstring to his ear, and shot his shaft at the tower. The Gothic captain, who was directing its movements from the summit, had trusted too much to the workmanship of his Milan armour. The fabric was not equal to that of Byzantium. The shaft pierced him to the heart; he tottered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two treenails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The bowstring consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same size for going over the knobs at the end ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... tole me that if I tole anybody whar he was gwine, he'd bowstring me and feed mah ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... then was dumb. The Mufti looked about the room, And straight made answer to his lord, Fearing the bowstring at each word: ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... cried once more that the house should be burned, but the rest called shame on him, and then Thorbrand crept up on one side and cut Gunnar's bowstring with his axe. But before he could reach the ground again Gunnar had seized his bill, and ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... life bereft. Too late, alas! her sorrowing lover mourns His cruel vengeance; and himself he hates, Too credulous listening, and too soon enflam'd: The bird he hates, who first betray'd the deed And caus'd him first to grieve: his bow he hates; His bowstring; arm; and with his arm the dart, Shot vengeful. Fond he clasps her fallen form; And strives by skill, by skill too late apply'd To conquer fate:—his healing arts he tries,— All unavailing. Fruitless he beholds His each attempt, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion. The royal, and even noble, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... but irritates and hardens. Any instrument of music Of this truth is an example. Lightly touched, it breathes but sweetness, Discord, when 't is roughly handled. 'T is not well to send an arrow To such heights, that in discharging The strong tension breaks the bowstring, Or the bow itself is fractured. These two simple illustrations Are sufficiently adapted To my purpose, of advising Means of cure both mild and ample. You must take a middle course, All extremes must be abandoned. Gentle but judicious ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... was soon after apparent, for another of Drake's companions, being desirous to show the third Indian a specimen of the English valour and dexterity, attempted, likewise, to shoot an arrow, but drawing it with his full force, burst the bowstring; upon which the Indians, who were unacquainted with their other weapons, imagined him disarmed, followed the company, as they were walking negligently down towards their boat, and let fly their arrows, aiming particularly at Winter, who had the bow in his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... 1: A nock is the groove at either end of a bow for holding the bowstring or the notch in the end of an arrow ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... Sire their wishes knew, And he whose lips are ever true Caused the two Gods to meet as foes. Then fierce the rage of battle rose: Bristled in dread each starting hair As Siva strove with Vishnu there. But Vishnu raised his voice amain. And Siva's bowstring twanged in vain; Its master of the Three bright Eyes Stood fixt in fury and surprise. Then all the dwellers in the sky, Minstrel, and saint, and God drew nigh, And prayed them that the strife might cease, And the great rivals met in peace. 'Twas seen how Siva's bow has failed ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI |
