"Executioner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feasting on this happy thought, I send this revelation to mankind and yield my body to the executioner to be shot until ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... with them cords, as usual, to bind the prisoner's hands. But Egmont remonstrated, and showed that he had himself cut off the collar of his doublet and shirt, in order to facilitate the stroke of the executioner. This he did to convince them that he meditated no resistance; and on his promising that he would attempt none, they consented to his remaining with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... last prevailed, and she yielded to his guilty embraces. The next morning Kirk, with unparalleled brutality, desired the lady to look out at the window of his bedchamber, when she was struck with the horrid sight of her husband upon a scaffold, ready to receive the blow of the executioner; and before she could reach the place where he was, in order to take a last embrace, her husband was ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... eleventh of November, precisely at noon. He met his death with perfect composure, declined addressing the multitude assembled, and told the sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Another account says that he "betrayed no emotion, and even hurried the executioner in the performance of his duty." "Not a limb nor a muscle was observed to move. His body, after his death, was given over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... the spirit of the inhabitants of the Philippines, when in the midst of so many calamities they did not know whether they would see sprout the seed they were planting, whether their field was going to be their grave or their crop would go to feed their executioner? What is there strange in it, when we see the pious but impotent friars of that time trying to free their poor parishioners from the tyranny of the encomenderos by advising them to stop work in the mines, to abandon their commerce, to break up their looms, pointing out to them heaven ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... August 19, 1622. Thus the measures adopted against the missionaries are seen to have gradually increased in severity. The first two fathers put to death, De l'Assumpcion and Machado, were beheaded in 1617, not by the common executioner but by one of the principal officers of the daimyo. The next two, Navarette and Ayala, were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his head exposed. Finally, in 1622, Zuniga and Flores ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... alleged against him in that particular. He says of London that "he was committed to the Tower, where for more than two months he lay, with as near a prospect as ever prisoner had of a chop with the executioner's axe on a scaffold on Tower Hill." I may be over-fastidious, but the word "chop" offends my ears with its coarseness, or if that be too strong, has certainly the unpleasant effect of an emphasis ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... were coming out of the willows, crowding up around my horse, and I heard everywhere my name pronounced, and everywhere outstretched hands sought mine, and painted faces were lifted to mine—even the blackened visage of the war-party's executioner relaxing into ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the strength, often turning to bitterness, is not far to seek; a discordant note sounds throughout it which almost spoils the music. He "treats the Pope as the King of France himself would not dare to treat him"; he goes along the streets of Rome "like an executioner," Raffaelle says of him. Once he seems to have shut himself up with the intention of starving himself to death. As we come in reading his life on its harsh, untempered incidents, the thought again and again arises that he is one of those ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... case of Sir EVERARD DIGBY, executed for a participation in the Gunpowder Plot, the tongue pronounced several words after the head was severed from the body. After the execution of CHARLOTTE CORDAY, also, it is alleged that the executioner held up her lovely head by its beautiful hair, and slapped the pale cheeks, which instantly reddened, and gave to the features such an expression of unequivocal indignation, that the spectators, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... Augustus by her winning manners, or move him by a display of her distress. Her power, she realized at last, was gone; but grace his triumph in Rome she was determined she would not. As a crowned queen she had lived; as one she would die. The deadly asp, it is said, became the executioner of her wicked will; and when the victor came to stay the act which would rob him of a part of his revenge, he found the work accomplished. Cleopatra would ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... what you might say, onfriendly relations, I've got to say fer him that he never pays a debt, an' if you've got four dollars comin' from him you might as well set around like a buzzard till he dies, which he's that ornery it prob'ly won't be long, an' then file yer claim ag'in his executioner." ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... But no executioner may have imagination; in the darkness of his room the attitudes of the slain were pictured to Garth as clearly as if they already lay before him: Grylls's gross body huddled in the grass; Mabyn hideous ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... his ingenuity in his efforts to evade his danger, but Stone drew the noose about him tighter and tighter. He played the unlucky man with all the malice of an executioner. He baited him and toyed with him. McAlpin, white, stood his ground. His fighting blood was all there and he broke at length into a torrent of abuse of the man that he realized was ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... another placed above. In the inner edges of the frame are grooves; in these is placed a sharp axe, with a vast weight of lead, supported at the summit by a peg; to that peg is fastened a cord, which the executioner cutting, the axe falls, and beheads the criminal. If he was condemned for stealing a horse or a cow, the string was tied to the beast, which pulled out the peg ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... eighteenth century, a picture often false in its lights and exaggerated in its shadows, but a picture none the less. Mr. Froude admits the martyrdom of Ireland but regrets that the martyrdom was not more completely carried out. His ground of complaint against the Executioner is not his trade but his bungling. It is the bluntness not the cruelty of the sword that he objects to. Resolute government, that shallow shibboleth of those who do not understand how complex a thing ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... walk had been built out from the second story of the prison to the executioner's platform. From this high scaffold rose a great cross with ropes and chains dangling from the arms. Below were piled high heaps of fagots, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... is now over. The prisoner rose early and made a hearty breakfast, and plainly enjoyed the cigar which he smoked afterwards with his friend the Governor, who seemed to regard the entrance of the executioner as an untimely interruption to the conversation. "You'll have to wait a bit for the rest of that story, Governor," was LARRIKIN's light-hearted comment. The unhappy man then—(Details follow which we ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... Executioner Samson shews the Head: fierce shout of Vive la Republique rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats waving: students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on the far Quais; fling it over Paris. Orleans drives off in his cabriolet; the Townhall Councillors rub their hands, saying, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... such great wound, but that it was easily recouered. The English company hearing of it, acquainted the king with the fact, who immediatly sent both for the party that had receiued the wound and the offender also, and caused an executioner in the presence of himselfe and the English, to chastise the slaue euen to death, which was performed to the ende that no man should presume to commit the like part, or to doe any thing in ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... acquainted with the laws that govern Roman Catholicism—yea, better than we are with the laws that govern this country, as we for fifty-six years have been directly influenced by this "Canon Law," and for the past thirty years, or since we became a Roman Catholic priest, have been a servant and an executioner of this law; therefore, I know whereof I speak, and no man dare deny ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... about fifteen years ago, but there have been none since. Proved guilty of infidelity, the wretched woman, dressed in a long white gown, was placed on a donkey, her face to the tail, with shaven head and bared face. In front of the cortege marched the executioner, musicians, dancers, and abandoned women of the town. Arrived at the summit of the mountain, the victim, half dead with fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but one God, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... up his snub nose, Barabbas let it be understood that he was not to be won with women and promises—he was no longer young enough. Neither would he have any executioner dispatched in search of him—he was not old enough. And he had his weaknesses. He could not decide which would suit the noble citizen's slender, white neck best, metal or silk. He took a silken string from the pocket of his cloak, while two ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... him in the theatre, but the people only recollected how noble he was, and how he had defended all Greece from Nabis. So his enemies hurried him away, and put him in an underground dungeon, where, at night, they sent an executioner to carry him a dose of poison. Philopoemen raised himself with difficulty, for he was very weak, and asked the man whether he could tell him what had become of his young Megalopolitan friends. The man replied that he thought they ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Now the executioner seized her by the hand; then she hastily threw the eleven shirts over the swans, and immediately eleven handsome Princes stood there. But the youngest had a swan's wing instead of an arm, for a sleeve was wanting to his shirt—she had not ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the punishment they had suffered, nor were there any tyrants to whom they could transfer their guilt. But they trusted that sufficient atonement had been made by the death of so many of their senators by poison and the hands of the executioner. They said, "that a few only of their nobles remained, being such as were not induced by the consciousness of their demerit to adopt any desperate measure respecting themselves, and had not been condemned to death through the resentment of their conquerors. That these implored ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... that something less than fourteen or fifteen pounds was the actual weight which popular belief throughout Germany ascribed to persons in that possessed state, no matter how large or fat they might seem to the eye; and Rickius gives an example of a woman, executed by drowning in 1594, whom the executioner could hardly keep under with repeated thrusts of his pole, so high did she bound upwards from the surface, and "so boil up," as it were, out of the depths of the water. The levity of possessed persons in water might be accounted for by a ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... ago, also, Myers was in my custody, and I treated him, as I should any fellow-creature, with some kindness and consideration. I spoke to him seriously, and endeavoured to win him from his evil courses. I did not consider myself either as his judge or executioner. Perhaps, therefore, gratitude may have induced him to ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... I knew the story of Christian VII.'s masterful minister; of his fall and trial on the charge of supplanting his master in the affections of the young and beautiful Queen, sister of George III. Very old men told yet, when I was a boy, of that dark day when the proud head fell under the executioner's axe in the castle square—dark for the people whose champion Struensee had tried to be. My mother was born and reared in the castle at Elsinore where the unhappy Queen, disgraced and an outcast, wrote on the window-pane of her prison cell: "Lord, keep me innocent; make ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... candles, scattered about regardless of expense, and kept well snuffed by the miller, who walks round the room at intervals of five minutes, snuffers in hand, and nips each wick with great precision, and with something of an executioner's grim look upon his face as he closes the snuffers upon the neck of the candle. Next to the candle-light show the red and blue coats and white breeches of the soldiers—nearly twenty of them in all besides the ponderous Derriman—the head of the latter, and, indeed, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... with section 30 of the bill of rights of the constitution of the State which declares, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law," And that surely cannot be due process of law wherein one of the parties only is law-maker, judge, jury and executioner, and the other stands silenced, denied the power either of assent or dissent, a condition of "involuntary slavery" so clearly prohibited in section 31 of the same article, as well as in the Constitution of the United States, that no legislation or judicial prejudice can ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... prince and his mother in the Tower of Comares; then, calling to mind the prediction of the astrologers, that the youth would one day sit on the throne of Granada, he impiously set the stars at defiance. "The sword of the executioner," said he, "shall prove the fallacy of those lying horoscopes, and shall ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... priest at the altar, am a being lonely, abhorred, accursed. Yet I have the feelings, the passions of other men. But what maiden would listen to the suit of one like me? What father would give his daughter to my arms? None, none! And, therefore, the state decrees that when the executioner would wed, he must take to his arms a woman doomed to death. I loved you, Magdalena, hopelessly, ere I dreamed the hour would ever arrive when I might hope to claim you. That hour has now come. I offer you your life and my hand. You ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... The gigantic executioner—the strangler—named Sa'ad, seized Abd el Rahman by the right arm. Musa, his tar-hued companion, gripped him by the left. Never a word uttered the Apostate as he was led away through the horsemen. But he gave one backward ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... they were obliged to load the sighing canvas with the most repulsive forms of suffering. In truth, when we regard many galleries which contain nothing but scenes of bloodshed, scourging, and beheading, one might suppose that the old masters had painted for the collection of an executioner. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... which had troubled him all night, of a broadside notoriety in all the city papers, rose before his mind, clothed with fresh horror. The dull sound of sharpening those pencils was like the whetting of the executioner's knife. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... come to spring his trap unless the sun shines on the 21st of March. If it doesn't, the play goes over to the next clear day, only that the curtain will rise a minute or so earlier in correspondence with the onward march of the sun-god, the executioner in the cast of our drama. Well, I have made my preparations to counter-check. To-morrow we shall ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Chamberlain came by, and having heard what had happened, he angrily dismissed the crowd, and sending for the executioner, ordered the cheating impostor to be whipped and branded, and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... to the turn of Cato and Catulus to speak. After they had made a vigorous opposition, and Cato in his speech had also urged suspicious matter against Caesar and strongly argued against him, the conspirators were handed over to the executioner, and as Caesar was leaving the Senate many of the young men who then acted as a guard to Cicero, crowded together and threatened Caesar with their naked swords.[461] But Curio[462] is said to have thrown his ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... supper was provided for him, and he was permitted to enjoy the society of a numerous party of his friends. When he reached the spot where he was to suffer, he was subjected to no lingering torments; for his head was severed from his body by a single stroke of the executioner. [383:1] ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... somebody—people, principles, absent friends, or enemies; anything unfairly attacked. Generally, when she said anything cutting, it was so clearly incisive you hardly knew for a moment where you were injured. She did it like the executioner of that Eastern potentate who decapitated a criminal with such skill and with so sharp an instrument that the latter did not know when he was executed and went on talking, his head remaining in situ until he sneezed. There was one old gentleman, Lord Groome, whom she had disposed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the King had seen him slip the letter into Don John's glove, and would ask for it, and take it, and read it—and that would be the end. Thrills of torment ran through him, and he knew how it must feel to lie bound on the rack and to hear the executioner's hands on the wheel, ready to turn it again at the judge's word. He had seen a man tortured once, and remembered his face. He was sure that the King must have seen the letter, and that meant torment and death, and the King was ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... even barbarian society. It was a full-sized figure representing a Federal soldier, with a Unitarian lying on the ground, the Federal pressing his knees between the victim's shoulders, whose head was pulled back with the left hand, and the throat cut from ear to ear, while the executioner exultingly held aloft a bloody knife and seemed to be claiming the applause of the spectators. I am sure I do not err in saying that every one of our party felt an involuntary shudder come over him when his eye fell upon this tableau; nor did we afterward ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... From thine owne altar which the gods adore, Kindle the souls of gnats and wasps before? Who would delight in his chast eyes to see Dormise to strike at lights of poesie? Faction and envy now are downright rage. Once a five-knotted whip there was, the stage: The beadle and the executioner, To whip small errors, and the great ones tear; Now, as er'e Nimrod the first king, he writes: That's strongest, th' ablest deepest bites. The muses weeping fly their hill, to see Their noblest sons of peace in mutinie. Could there nought else this civil war compleat, But poets raging with poetic ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... conquest and use of animal life, will run the gamut, from the biggest elephant, employed as a public executioner in India, to the invisible microbe, doing a work ten thousand times more important all ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... brought to the foot of the cross. There is no wringing of hands or lamenting crowd—no haggard signs of fainting or pain in His body. Scourging or fainting, feeble knee and torn wound,—he thinks scorn of all that, this shepherd-boy. One executioner is hammering the wedges of the cross harder down. The other—not ungently—is taking Christ's red robe off His shoulders. And St. John, a few yards off, is keeping his mother from coming nearer. She looks down, not at Christ; but tries ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... France in the disguise of a priest, but was arrested at the Pyrenees. He with the three others were all convicted of high treason, and, a few hours after their condemnation, were beheaded at Nantes. Poncallec was the last to suffer. When ascending the scaffold, he asked the executioner his name; on his answering "La Mer," Poncallec felt the witch's ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... savage, for so I called him now, made a motion to me to lend him my sword, which hung naked in a belt by my side; so I did, He no sooner had it, but he runs to his enemy, and at one blow cut off his head so cleverly that no executioner in Germany could have done it sooner or better; which I thought very strange for one who, I had reason to believe, never saw a sword in his life before, except their own wooden swords: however, it seems, as I learned afterward, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... were military chiefs of the phratries, and also magistrates charged with the duty of maintaining order and enforcing the decrees of the council in their respective quarters. The "chief of the eagle and cactus" was chief executioner,—Jack Ketch. He was not eligible for the office of "chief-of-men;" the three other phratry-captains were eligible. Then there was a member of the priesthood entitled "man of the dark house." This person, with the three eligible captains, made a quartette, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... threw herself between him and his victim. With her own body she shielded the Captain from harm, for her heart was moved to pity for the stranger, and she could not bear that he should die. And now aroused, with flashing eyes she waved the executioner back. Then she pleaded with her father that the captive's life ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith
... the opening of one of the sewers of the citadel of Beejapoor, and we know that the real head, annually covered with oil and red pigment, has been exhibited to the pious Mahomedans of Ahmudnuggur, on the anniversary of the battle, for the last two hundred and fifty years, by the descendants of the executioner, in whose hands it has remained till the present period." This ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... second thief raised it to his lips, with a motion of arm and knee an executioner caught Dysmas beneath the chin, behind the leg, and the thief lay on a cross. In a second his wrists were bound, his feet as well. There was the blow of a hammer on a nail, a spurt of blood from the open hand; another blow, another ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... general and his staff turned their attention to the prisoners. Two hundred Spaniards who had delivered themselves up were immediately shot. After this military execution, the general ordered as many gibbets planted on the terrace as there were members of the family of Leganes, and he sent for the executioner of the town. ...
— El Verdugo • Honore de Balzac
... pities the blow; and the Moorish soldier, deeply hurt at the insult, resolves to betray his master. He accordingly goes to the prison where Philip, the Cardinal, and Alonzo are confined, and killing his fellow Zarrack who was to have been their executioner, sets them free. When Abdelazer enters he finds himself entrapped. He glories, however, in his crimes, and as they set on him kills Osmin, himself falling dead in the melee. The Cardinal is forgiven, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... path they were ascending was quite steep, and Fernando could not help glancing at the pretty little hand, encased in a cream-colored kid glove, resting on his arm. If Fernando had known that an executioner were behind him with an axe raised, ready to cut off his head if he touched that hand, he could not have helped doing it. From putting his own right hand upon it as if by chance, and taking it away again after a minute or so, and then putting it back again, he got ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... him a look of scorn, made answer, "On the occasion of your death the only one present to merit admiration will be the public executioner who will officiate." So saying, he turned and descended to the palace accompanied by Azalia and the ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... in particular, nearly all simple folks, had a desire to laugh, even when they were worn out with fatigue, which made a pretext of the slightest thing, and notably of danger. One of them, called Tailleur, a buffoon with the airs of an executioner's assistant, would call out at the first explosions of a hurricane ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... upon my lips, fingering carelessly the stem of my wineglass, unwilling guest of an unwilling host. I do not know how long we sat there in silence, but it seemed to me an eternity, for all the time I knew that Blenavon was watching me. I felt like a victim upon the rack, whilst he, the executioner, held the cords. I do not think, however, that he learnt anything from ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one little dark corner in yonder Tower, than ever I learned by any travail in so many places as I have been." And he desired the people to pray for him, for he "did in no wise fear death." So, taking the executioner by the hand, he said he forgave him heartily, but entreated him not to strike till he had said a few prayers, "and then he should have good leave." And so he knelt down, and laid his head on the block, and prayed; then lifting his head again, once more asked all ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... like that, Susan," Lady O'Gara said, almost sharply. "You look as though I were judge and executioner. You shall keep your padlocked gate. After all it is a bad road, I don't think Sir Shawn will want to take it, though it is the shortest way to Inch. You did not find the ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... your two children, your two jewels, killed by their own father. And I have punished the King for the caprice he took into his head, by making him first the judge of his brother, and afterwards the executioner of his children. But as I have wished only to shear and not to flay you, I desire now that all the poison may turn into sweetmeats for you. Therefore, go, take again your children and my grandchildren, who are more beautiful than ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... fearing the prisoner would escape, called on his guards to fire upon him. Four balls pierced Antequera, who fell dying from his horse into the arms of two accompanying priests. Thus the most turbulent of all the Governors of Paraguay ceased troubling, and the executioner, after having cut off his head, exhibited it to the people from the scaffold, with the usual moral aphorism as to the ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... two lived together. Little speech passed between them, save that speech of comrades, who use more the sign than the tongue. It seemed to Pierre after a time that Gaspard's wrongs were almost his own. Yet with this difference: he must stand by and let the avenger be the executioner; he must be the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... no more! Quick, dry your tears. Let not my executioner see that we can feel pain ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... many days without speaking to the father, Juli fell sick, but Cabesang Tales did not shed a single tear, although for two days he never left the house, as if he feared the looks of reproach from the whole village or that he would be called the executioner of his son. But on the third day he again ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... did not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man, perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other Roman, could it be said,—as Sir Walter ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... I know all about it!" silenced the pleading boy. His case was prejudged, and he was now in the hands of the executioner. Slowly, and with trembling hands, the poor child removed his outer garment, his pale face growing paler every moment, and then submitting himself to the cruel rod that checkered his back with smarting ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... gentlemen, that a cuatrero is a stealer of cattle, the ansia is the question or torture. Roznos—saving your presence—are asses, and the first desconcierto is the first turn of the cord which is given by the executioner when we are on the rack. But we do more than burn oil to the Virgin. There is not one of us who does not recite his rosary carefully, dividing it into portions for each day of the week. Many will not steal at all on a Friday, and on Saturdays ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... support and defense, and that being freemen, they be settled there on a free tenure; that all they work for and gain be theirs to dispose of and to sell it according to their pleasure; that whoever is placed over them as commander act as their father not as their executioner, leading them with a gentle hand; for whoever rules them as a friend and associate will be beloved by them, as he who will order them as a superior will subvert and nullify everything; yea, they will excite against him the neighbouring provinces to which they will fly. ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... Of all Offices, one would not beg this; viz. Uncall'd for, to be an Executioner of the Vindictive Wrath of God; the extent and duration of which is to us uncertain. If this ever was a Commission; How do we know but that it is long since out of Date? Many have found it to their Cost, that a Prophetical ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... precaution he proposed, if he was not sure he ran no risque of infection. Nevertheless, Thomas continued obstinate; and, at length declared, that if the dog was not shot immediately, he himself would be his executioner — This declaration opened the flood-gates of Tabby's eloquence, which would have shamed the first-rate oratress of Billingsgate. The footman retorted in the same stile; and the squire dismissed him from ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... neither will insist on nobility; but will either consent to share the obloquy of a union with an hereditary executioner?" ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... driven it in to the head and clinched it. On the other hand, would Miss Pemberton ever speak again to the man who had been the instrument of bringing disgrace upon the family? Spies, detectives, police officers, may be useful citizens, but they are rarely pleasant company for other people. We fee the executioner, but we do not touch his bloody hand. We might feel a certain tragic admiration for Brutus condemning his sons to death, but we would scarcely invite Brutus to dinner after the event. It would harrow our ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... forward and give a sign; then the red-painted face of his executioner leered at him and he watched the tomahawk descending ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... a wild chorus of fear. The women fled to the huts—the men ran like rats to shelter. But the executioner of Bekwando, who was a fetish man and holy, stood his ground and pointed his knife at Trent. Two others, seeing him firm, also remained. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... windows. Blood wells up on an altar. The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor and... a giant of blood stands before me. His beard and his hair drip blood. He seats himself on the altar and laughs from thick lips. The black executioner raises his sword and whirls it above my head. Another moment and my head will roll down on the floor. Another moment and the red jet will spurt ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... sentence, equally cruel and lawless, severely executed. The poor women kneeling down, in Christian meekness besought the Lord to forgive him, for that he knew not what he did: so they were led to the Market Cross, calling upon God to strengthen their Faith. The Executioner commanded them to put off their clothes, which they refused. Then he stripped them naked to the waist, put their arms into the whipping-post, and executed the Mayor's warrant far more cruelly than is usually done to the worst of malefactors, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... the tragedy being entirely wanting, partly because of an obvious stageyness in the action of the figures taking part in the scene. There is a want of dramatic unity in the whole; the figures are introduced in an accidental way, and their relative proportion is not accurately preserved; the executioner, for example, is head and shoulders larger than anyone else, whilst the two figures standing on the steps of Solomon's throne are in marked contrast. The one with the shield, on the left, is as monumental ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... fact remains that criminals for the most part die well and bravely. It is said that the championship of England was to be decided at some little distance from London on the morning of the day on which Thurtell was executed, and that, when he came out on the scaffold, he inquired privily of the executioner if the result had yet become known. Jack Ketch was not aware, and Thurtell expressed his regret that the ceremony in which he was chief actor should take place so inconveniently early in the day. Think of a poor Thurtell forced to take his long journey an hour, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... persons to pray for him. At the last moment he confessed that his conduct towards Northampton had been vile and wicked. Whilst craving pardon of Northampton's son "he was suddenly turned off, and the executioner ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... while the lower florets contain stamens and pistil, it follows they must often effect cross-pollination as they crawl over the spadix. But here is no trap to catch the tiny benefactors such as is set by wicked Jack-in-the-pulpit, or the skunk-cabbage, or another cousin, a still more terrible executioner, the cuckoo-pint ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... followers what was essential to membership in the Christian Church, as well as what was essential to its existence and prosperity. I may also observe, that if the existence of class-meetings cannot be maintained except by the terror of the scorpion-whip, or rather executioner's sword, of expulsion from the church, it says little for them as a privilege, or place of delightful and joyous resort. My own conviction is, that if class-meetings, like love-feasts, were maintained and recommended as a privilege and useful means of religious ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... with her Popery and temper was a wonderfully beautiful woman. I should not soon be weary looking at her portrait. She was daughter of Henry IV. of France. Her fortune was hard, to lose a father by an assassin, and a husband by the executioner. The Gobelin tapestry, illustrating the life of Esther, in the Audience Room, is very rich. In the State Ante-Room are the most wonderful carvings of fowl, fish, fruit, and flowers, by Grinling Gibbons. They are thought to be unsurpassed in this department of art. On ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... of Queen Berengaria was withstood by the chamberlain, and she could hear the stern commands of the king from within to the executioner. Edith could ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of the pagoda swung open, and a bright light escaped from its interior, in the midst of which Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis espied the victim. She seemed, having shaken off the stupor of intoxication, to be striving to escape from her executioner. Sir Francis's heart throbbed; and, convulsively seizing Mr. Fogg's hand, found in it an open knife. Just at this moment the crowd began to move. The young woman had again fallen into a stupor caused by the fumes of hemp, and passed among the fakirs, who escorted ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... himself wide latitude in some matters it was because he had lived his life in an atmosphere where the wide latitude was the thing. The prairie had been his bed, the sky his roof, himself his own policeman, judge, and executioner since boyhood. When responsibility is so centralized wide latitudes must be allowed. But the uttermost borders of that latitude were fixed with iron rigidity, and when he had thrown a vile epithet at a decent woman he knew he had broken the law ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... all hands, that peace should rule with a scepter, than than the tribunes of the people should brandish their broadswords. Better be the subject of a king, upright and just; than a freeman in Franko, with the executioner's ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... prayer at the stake, to which he was only tied, but not nailed as usual, as he assured them he should stand immoveable, the flames, on their kindling the fagots, encircled his body, like an arch, without touching him; and the executioner, on seeing this, was ordered to pierce him with a sword, when so great a quantity of blood flowed out as extinguished the fire. But his body, at the instigation of the enemies of the gospel, especially Jews, was ordered to be consumed in the pile, and the request of his friends, who ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... particulars of the conspiracy. Girolamo was twenty-three years of age, and exhibited no less composure at his death than resolution in his previous conduct, for being stripped of his apparel, and in the hands of the executioner, who stood by with the sword unsheathed, ready to deprive him of life, he repeated the following words, in the Latin tongue, in which he was well versed: "Mors acerba, fama perpetua, stabit ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... died in the true faith? If answered in the affirmative, a rope was passed round their necks and twisted to the stake, so that they were strangled before the fire was kindled. All the other culprits had died in this manner; and the head executioner inquired of Father Mathias, whether Amine had a claim to so much mercy. The old priest answered not, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Republic of Russia, I am told, no one can lay claim to the title of worker unless his hands are hardened and roughened by toil, and LENIN and TROTSKY have to take their turns at the rack, like the commonest executioner. In England we are not nearly so particular about the manual test, and, besides feeling quite kindly disposed towards professional footballers, tea-tasters and the men who stand on Cornish cliffs and shout when they see the pilchard shoals come ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... other matters, duplicity, faithlessness, and broken pledges are brought to book and punished; but not so with love, which is at once the victim, the accuser, the counsel, judge, and executioner. The cruelest treachery, the most heartless crimes, are those which remain for ever concealed, with two hearts alone for witness. How indeed should the victim proclaim them without injury to herself? Love, therefore, has its own code, its own ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... day appointed, a strong corps of arquebusiers was drawn up in the plaza. The guards were doubled over the houses were dwelt the principal partisans of Almagro. The executioner, attended by a priest, stealthily entered his prison; and the unhappy man, after confessing and receiving the sacrament, submitted without resistance to the garrote. Thus obscurely, in the gloomy ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... was a middle-aged man of strong build and florid face, with a brush of thick black hair. His quick-glancing eyes were at once cold and kind, but the kindness had something terrifying in it, like the politeness of an executioner. As the two men stood together they presented absolutely opposite types: Coquenil, taller, younger, deep-eyed, spare of build, with a certain serious reserve very different from the commissary's outspoken directness. M. Pougeot ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... he cried. "Death the judge, the gaoler, the executioner! He has done justice on them for me, and they will not break loose from the house he has made for them to lie in and to sleep in for ever. And now, friend Death, I am master in their stead, and you must give me time to enjoy ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... are like Abbe Midon," he said, sadly; "you will not believe. Who knows how much your coming here this morning will cost you? It is said that no one can escape his destiny. But if some day the hand of the executioner is laid upon your shoulder, remember that I warned you, and ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... sentence of decapitation, and was about to be instantly decapitated, and an express arrived with a pardon for the condemned convict Grewgious if he wrote a play, I should be under the necessity of resuming the block, and begging the executioner to proceed to extremities,—meaning,' said Mr. Grewgious, passing his hand under his chin, 'the singular number, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... was, even Peter began at last to grow impatient at the vagaries of his company. Finally, when the Executioner (a mere walker-on of no importance whatever) had twice brought ridicule upon the ultimate solemnities of the law by his introduction of comic dives off the scaffold, the manager rang down the curtain. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... assisted her to remove her clothing, but she firmly said, "Instead of weeping, rejoice; I am very happy to leave this world and in so good a cause." Then she knelt, and after praying stretched out her neck to the executioner, imagining that he would strike off her head while in an upright posture and with the sword, as in France; they told her of her mistake, and without ceasing to pray she laid her head on the block. There was a universal feeling of compassion, even the headsman himself being so moved that he did his ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... beams, they had adored a cheat; A make-believe; a lie. Immense their rage! One aim inspired them all— To punish. But while they swayed and tossed In wrathful argument on just desert, Fair Truth indeed appeared, clad in her robes Of glorious majesty. "Desist, my friends," She cried; "the executioner condign Of Insincerity, and your avenger, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... of Madame Elisabeth gave to all she said and did a noble character, descriptive of that of her soul. On the day on which this worthy descendant of Saint Louis was sacrificed, the executioner, in tying her hands behind her, raised up one of the ends of her handkerchief. Madame Elisabeth, with calmness, and in a voice which seemed not to belong to earth, said to him, "In the name of modesty, cover my bosom." I learned ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... him and defy him. Cheerfully will I lay this head upon the block; cheerfully will I accompany my lord to the scaffold: we will cry, 'God save King James!' with our dying breath, and smile in the face of the executioner." And she told her page a hundred times at least of the particulars of the last interview which she had with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't understand," cried Mark, arresting the man, for he had evidently taken it that he was to play the part of executioner upon the white skipper; while to judge from his aspect, he was prepared to perform his part with great gusto. Then making the men understand, he was about to despatch them over the side in one of the boats, when the American ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... Effect or Karma. As a man sows so shall he reap, in a literal sense. You are what you are to-day, by reason of what you were in your last life. And in your next life you will be what you are making of yourself to-day. You are your own judge, and executioner—your own bestower of rewards. But the Love of the Absolute is ever working to lead you upward to the Light, and to open your soul to that knowledge that, in the words of the Yogis, "burns up Karma," and enables you to throw off the burden of Cause and Effect that you have ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... the Revolt of Islam, in which Laon, confronting the tyrant on his throne, quells by a look and a word a henchman who was about to stab him, is a too brief rendering of Godwin's reflections on the story of Marius and the Executioner ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... shouted, "if ye would see to-morrow's light. Touch one hair of his head and your king dies," and I covered Twala with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir Henry pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to carry out the sentence, and Good taking ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... with that of his father. In 1833 he was made first president at Orleans, and in 1844 attorney-general. Later near Limoges he came suddenly upon a scene which moved him deeply: the public confession of Veronique Graslin. The vicomte had unknowingly been the executioner of the chatelaine of Montegnac. [A Second Home. A Daughter of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... caused many an Englishman's body to be unburied, and to rot above ground, not one of your bones shall be buried," pronounced Captain Church. And he ordered an old Indian, who acted as executioner, to behead and quarter ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... volley. As he had expected, the band consisted of undisciplined peasants, who once scattered were unable to rally. They were therefore completely routed. Poul killed several with his own hand, among whom were two whose heads he cut off as cleverly as the most experienced executioner could have done, thanks to the marvellous temper of his Damascus blade. At this sight all who had till then stood their ground took to flight, Poul at their heels, slashing with his sword unceasingly, till they disappeared among the mountains. He then returned to the field ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not Scripture suggest to us in the story of Lazarus—of Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration—of the dying thief—of the spirits in the Unseen Life whom Christ visited at His death—that Death comes not as an executioner to cut off our departed one from life and love, but rather as God's good angel bringing him more than life has ever brought, and leading him by a path as full of miracles of soft arrangement as was his birth to heights ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... a significant gesture indicated that Mannaeus was the executioner. He then presented the Sadducees to ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... misleading, and the most direct, is actually saying the thing that is not; and it is defended on the principle that such words are not a lie, when there is a "justa causa," as killing is not murder in the case of an executioner. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... which everyone can understand. In this sense, therefore, force must be the ultimate sanction, though it is equally true that to get the force you must appeal to motives very different from those wielded by the executioner. The application of this analogy of criminal law to questions of morality and religion affects the final conclusions of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... shook hands, however, and bowed again, and each was the other's 'servant;' and being seated, they talked de generalibus; for the good parson would not come like an executioner and take his prisoner by the throat, but altogether in the spirit of the shepherd, content to walk a long way about, and wait till he came up with the truant, and entreating him kindly, not dragging or beating him back ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... poor Mrs. M'Coy fell on her knees to colonel Brown, and with all the widowed mother agonizing in her looks, plead for his life. But in vain. With the dark features of a soul horribly triumphant over the cries of mercy, he repulsed her suit, and ordered the executioner to do his office! He hung up the young man before the eyes of his mother! and then, with savage joy, suffered his Indians, in her presence, to strike their tomahawks into his forehead; that forehead which she had so often pressed to her bosom, and kissed ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... replied Rouletabille, proudly. "I am not a policeman, I am a journalist; and my business is not to arrest people. My business is in the service of truth, and is not that of an executioner. If you are just, Monsieur, you will see that I am right. You can now understand why I refrained until this hour to divulge the name. I gave Larsan time to catch the 4:17 train for Paris, where he would know where to hide himself, and leave no traces. ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... was arrested, while quietly sleeping unsuspicious of danger. Being condemned to death, I was led to execution outside the city. By a fortunate chance I got my hands free, and snatching the sword from the executioner, laid about me so vigorously that all the men fell back, and I made my escape to the forest. There I wandered about for some time, subsisting on wild fruits and roots, and ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... a life in the principles of freedom," says the historian of the House of Russell, "which the axe of the executioner does not, for it cannot, touch." This great thought must have strengthened the souls of the parents under so terrible a trial. The mother's health, however, sunk under the blow, which, in the sympathy of her celebrated daughter-in-law, the heroic Lady Rachel Russell, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... was silent except for faint rustlings and here and there deep breaths drawn guardedly. The vital question hung like a sword over the white-faced girl. Perhaps she divined its impending stroke, for she sat like a stone with dilating, appealing eyes upon her executioner. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... two millions added to the free gift. In this way the revocation of the Edict of Nantes is gradually brought about, article by article, one turn of the rack after another turn, each fresh persecution purchased by a fresh largess, the clergy helping the State on condition that the State becomes an executioner. Throughout the eighteenth century the church sees that this operation continues.[1403] In 1717, an assemblage of seventy-four persons having been surprised at Andure the men are sent to the galleys and the women are ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a fact of which you are ignorant—that if the king were to know this evening of the presence of this musketeer, this abbe, this bishop, this confessor, here—he, who has risked everything to visit you, would to-morrow see glitter the executioner's ax at the bottom of a dungeon more gloomy and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... combat Youth, strength, or cunning; but for that I durst not Engage the goodness of a cause on fortune By which his name might have outfaced my vengeance. Oh, Tecnicus, inspired with Phoebus' fire! I call to mind thy augury, 'twas perfect; Revenge proves its own executioner. When feeble man is lending to his mother The dust he was first framed ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... his life, nor Collins's Peerage, nor the accounts and letters of his admirable widow, make any allusion to his {101} remains. At last I found, in the State Trials, vol. ix. p. 684., that after the executioner had held up the head to the people, "Mr. Sheriff ordered his Lordship's friends or servants to take the body and dispose of it as they pleased, being given them by His Majesty's favour." Probably, therefore, it was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... matter was very characteristic of Godfrey. I really believe that he would dislike being hanged much less if the executioner were one of the small class of men whom he recognizes ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... wronged or insulted her. Certain almost incredible recent instances prove that no woman is too base for immunity, no crime against life sufficiently rich in all the elements of depravity to compel a conviction of the assassin, or, if she is convicted and sentenced, her punishment by the public executioner." ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... cruelty in thee to th' height, Thus, thus to wound, not kill outright; Yet there's a way found, if thou please, By sudden death, to give me ease; And thus devised,—do thou but this, —Bequeath to me one parting kiss! So sup'rabundant joy shall be The executioner ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. 26. And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. 27. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, 28. And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the Marquis of Brandenburg to the emperor, "instantly offer my head to the executioner, than renounce the gospel and approve idolatry. Christ did not institute the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to be carried in pomp through the streets, nor to be adored by the people. He said, 'Take, eat;' but never said, 'Put this sacrament into a vase, carry ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... brave countrymen were called out by the horrid Kandyan tiger cats. Disarmed by the frenzy of their moonstruck commander, what resistance could they make? One after one the parties, called out to suffer, were decapitated by the executioner. The officers, who had refused to give up their pistols, finding what was going on, blew out their brains with their own hands, now too bitterly feeling how much wiser had been the poor privates than themselves. At length there was stillness on the field. Night had come ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various |
