|
|
|
More "Executioner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... roads of blood. Perhaps of all the uncivilized nations under the sun, the native Indians of America were the most humane; I have seen an hundred instances of their humanity and integrity;—when a white man was under the lash of the executioner, at Savannah in Georgia, for using an Indian woman ill, I saw Torno Chaci, their King, run in between the offender and the corrector, saying, "whip me, not him;"—the King was the complainant, indeed, but the man deserved a much severer chastisement. This was a Savage ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... unexpected which he tried to shake off lest it should fasten itself upon his life for good and all. And the other, muttering cautiously with downcast eyes, supposed that his comrade had seen the news of de P—-'s executioner—that was the expression he used—having been ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... "I beseech you all," he said again, "to believe that I die in the Catholic faith." He repeated the Miserere psalm, the psalm De Profundis, and the Paternoster. The executioner, as usual, begged his pardon. "I have deserved a thousand deaths," he muttered. He made the sign of the cross upon the saw-dust, and kissed it, then laid ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... fetch the poison; and this is the only chance they have of saving their lives. After sentence is pronounced upon them by the judge, they are asked in court, whether they will die by the hands of the executioner, or whether they will go to the Upas tree for a box of poison? They commonly prefer the latter proposal, as there is not only some chance of preserving their lives, but also a certainty, in case of their safe return, that a provision will be made for them in future by the Emperor. They are also ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... been selected to act as herald, provoked by the reception he had met with, undertook to act as executioner. Dermot's arms were bound tightly behind him, and he was again placed on the pony from which he had dismounted. The rope was secured to the beam, and the savage remorselessly prepared to ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... his rooms at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Every fact which was calculated to arouse sympathy for her was also helping to condemn her. No one doubted that she had shot Stephen Ballantyne. He deserved shooting—very well. But that did not give her the right to be his executioner. What was her defence to be? A sudden intolerable provocation? How would that square with the dragging of his body across the carpet to the door? There was the fatal ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... you have 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 ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... and sentencing those which they had never studied nor understood: as also these by the approbation of the ignorant multitude, with whose mind they have most affinity, can easily demolish the humanities and ratiocination of Aristotle, as the latter was the executioner of the Divine philosophies of others. See, then, what it comes to, if all should aspire to the sacred splendour, and yet are occupied ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... himself as a young man with only his tragedy in his wallet. Shall I ever be able to get mine played? Can you fancy the catcall music beginning, and the pit hissing at that perilous part of the fourth act, where my executioner comes out from the closet with his great sword, at the awful moment when he is called upon to amputate? They say Mr. Fielding, when the pit hissed at a part of one of his pieces, about which Mr. Garrick had warned him, said, 'Hang them, they have found it out, have they?' and finished ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... question of crime on one side," said I, "abortion is out of our power. If the means employed are not violent they are uncertain, and if they are violent they are dangerous to the mother. I will never risk becoming your executioner; but reckon on me, I will not forsake you. Your honour is as dear to me as your life. Becalm, and henceforth think that the peril is mine, not yours. Make up your mind that I shall find some way of escape, and that there will be no need to cut short that life, to preserve which I would gladly ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... understood everything," was the quick reply. "That man," he went on, "robbed me and gave me deliberately into the hands of the police. I swore to be avenged, and I have killed him—as he deserves. He was an assassin, and I am his executioner!" ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... from all the mental and moral philosophers, could wrestle with French and Latin verbs, and had memorized half the things Tennyson and Emerson had ever written, but could not milk a cow or churn up a week's supply of butter if the executioner stood ready with his axe to chop off her pretty yellow mop of a head in case she failed. How old Billy stormed when Sam started "keeping company" ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... sent word that he would be glad to see me, I, accompanied by the Interpreter, the Commander of the Escort, and last, but certainly not least, Herr VON KLEVERMANN, arrived at the Palace. Found that the Lord High Chamberlain had been removed yesterday. The Lord High Executioner was acting in his stead. In fact, this overworked official seemed to be the solitary survivor of the Imperial Household. The Lord High Executioner told us that His Majesty had been very irritable yesterday. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... The executioner obeyed, but the blow had been barely delivered when a loud snap was heard, and the tortured man experienced instant relief. Jock Bruce's little device had been successful, the instrument of torture ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... neck in the socket of a mock guillotine. Above him was suspended a huge gleaming knife that seemed to tremble, as if about to fall. At his side was a fellow dressed in the somber garments of an executioner. ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... trifle have them boiled in the bazaar by persons who are not only cooks, but sellers of sheepsheads, and are therefore called raa"s, or in the Egyptian dialect rewwas." The proverb is in the present case evidently meant as a play upon the literal meaning ("headsman," hence by implication "executioner") of the word rewwas, although I cannot find an instance of the word being employed in this sense. It is, however, abundantly evident from the general context that this is the author's intention in the passage in question, Alaeddin's head being metaphorically ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... then joy and solace have from me, I tears from thee, and punishment and woe? Now these mine hands shall make an end of thee. This, if thou know'st it not, for poison know. Much grieve I that thou should'st too honoured be By the executioner who deals the blow; Should'st die a death too easy: since I wot, For thee too shameful hand ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the scaffold gravely. He shook hands with the chaplain first, then the executioner, thanking the one, forgiving the other. The executioner pushed him back gently, says one account. At the moment when the assistant put the hideous rope round his neck, he made a sign to the chaplain to take the crown-piece which he had in his right hand, and said to him, "For ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... in the last Act may be noticed here. A Chandala or executioner leads a criminal to the place of execution. The latter bears a stake (Sula) on his shoulder, and is followed by his wife and son who use no expressions suggestive of tenderness but only of sacrifice—a stern sense of duty. At ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... being declared enemies by the senate, he starved them to death; Nero in the island of Ponza, and Drusus in the vaults of the Palatium. It is thought by some, that Nero was driven to a voluntary death by the executioner's shewing him some halters and hooks, as if he had been sent to him by order of the senate. Drusus, it is said, was so rabid with hunger, that he attempted to eat the chaff with which his mattress was stuffed. The relics of both were so scattered, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Alesia's husband), he being loyal to his half-brother, King Richard, while Joan was a vehement partisan of her son-in-law, Henry the Fourth. When no one came forward, in answer to her appeal, as the Duke's executioner, Joan exclaimed, "Cursed be you villains! are none of you bold enough to kill a man?" A squire volunteered to officiate, but when he had seen and heard the man whom he was to slay, he shrank from the terrible task. "Madam," was his remonstrance to the Countess, ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... the hands of the executioner, I could not observe what was going on around me. When I began to awake from the absorption of my pain and indignation, I found myself in my room. I had been ordered thither, and had mechanically obeyed. I was on my bed, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the table furiously with his clenched fist, shrieking: "Then Hell ought to open its jaws and swallow the whole band! But wait, I know what to do. Six months will soon be over, and then I'll make short work with the fine gentleman. I'll be judge and executioner in one person, and the trial won't last long, that I swear ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... tears then 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 ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... through Dacre. His hands clenched. He was as a man in the presence of his executioner. The paralysing spell was upon him again, constricting as a rope about his neck. But sacrifice was no part of his nature. With despair at his heart, he yet made a desperate ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... desperate panic. The sight of his brother's flesh bared to the bite of the lash brought home to him the horrifying significance of a flogging, and then, as if to emphasize that significance, the executioner gave his cat-o'-nine-tails a practice swing. As the lashes hissed through the air the victim at the post stiffened rigidly, but his brother, outside the inclosure, writhed in his tracks and uttered a faint moan. Profiting ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... host may be the Archangel Michael himself, or the holy Saint Mark, and the house to which you are bidden may be a paradise full of other angels! But I would as soon sit down before the grating and look at the hooded brother, while the executioner slipped the noose over my head to strangle me, as to go to any place on a bidding delivered by a fellow with such a jail-bird's head. It is as round as a bullet and as yellow as cheese. He has eyes like a turtle's and teeth like ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... to the most brutal. The hangman uses an argument 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
... Countess of Salisbury who, when an old woman upwards of seventy, was beheaded by the order of Henry VIII, and caused the headman much trouble by refusing to place her head upon the block; an illustration by Cruickshank depicts the executioner chasing ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... God permits that one shall be the executioner of the other for his evil deeds, that both may give place to his most holy gospel which, by the hands of the Spaniards, and by order of the most happy, catholic, and unconquered Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V of glorious memory, ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... Prince never existed: you will read that "the mission of Napoleon" was to be the "testamentary executor of the revolution;" and the Prince should have added the legatee; or, more justly still, as well as the EXECUTOR, he should be called the EXECUTIONER, and then his title would be complete. In Vendemiaire, the military Tartuffe, he threw aside the Revolution's natural heirs, and made her, as it were, ALTER HER WILL; on the 18th of Brumaire he strangled her, and on the 19th seized on her ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The offender was slung by a chain over a fire, and by means of a crane was dipped up and down into the flame, the torture being thus prolonged for an indefinite time. Francis was occasionally present in person at these exhibitions, the executioner waiting his ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... died of a single blow!" Presently, as his drunkenness fled, came dolour in its stead. So the Broker and the body were kept in the Governor's place till morning morrowed, when the Wali came out and gave order to hang the supposed murderer and commanded the executioner[FN508] make proclamation of the sentence. Forthwith they set up a gallows under which they made the Nazarene stand and the torch bearer, who was hangman, threw the rope round his neck and passed one end through the pulley, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... thought and conduct. It is the source of his moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and philosophy. It can endow him with energy, courage and endurance, and can as easily take these away. It can make him acquiesce in his own punishment, and embrace his executioner, submit to poverty, bow to tyranny, and sink without complaint under starvation. Not merely can it make him accept hardship and suffering unresistingly, but it can make him accept as truth the explanation that his perfectly preventable afflictions are sublimely just ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... city on that epoch-making night, dared to send back a prompt and spirited refusal. "Your Majesty," he reported, "I have examined those under my command touching your mandate; all are good citizens and brave soldiers, but I am unable to find for you among them a single executioner!" ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... walking about in the allees. What a residence—what a life—what a people!" Dumouriez could but lament with the royal family, and exhort them to be patient. But the endurance of the victims is exhausted sooner than the cruelty of the executioner. How could it be expected that a courageous and proud princess, who had been constantly surrounded by the adulation of the court, could love the Revolution that was the instrument of her humiliation and her torture? or see ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... without any start; it was the voice she expected, and she was meeting the expected eyes. Her face was as grave as if she had been looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the intention of soothing and propitiating her. Once a handsome face, with bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar impress of impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while accepting disrespect. He ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... writer says of them: "The Mang is a village menial in the Maratha villages, making all leather ropes, thongs and whips, which are used by the cultivators; he frequently acts as watchman; he is by profession a thief and executioner; he readily hires himself as an assassin, and when he commits a robbery he also frequently murders." In his menial capacity he receives presents at seed-time and harvest, and it is said that the Kunbi will never send the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... woman in her nakedness is put to death. The queen believed herself exercising her right; only inasmuch as the injury had been secret, she was doing herself justice as best she could. The passive accomplice would become the executioner of the other, and the punishment would thus spring from the crime itself. The hand would ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... British, from Gilbert & Sullivan's 'lord high executioner'] n. The person in an organization who knows the most about some aspect ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... went on, "the executioner driving four little pieces of wood between the cords, after the Capuchins have blessed the hammer and nails. Ah, heavens! Sister, how enraged they seem with him, because he will not speak. Mother! mother! give me your hand, I want to ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... fret of a rope. Many a beautiful woman has swung from that beam by neck, or feet, or wrists, and her body dropped through the well into the Holy Jumna without the knowledge of any save her master and her executioner." ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... touch the music—and soon I was rattling through it, all my thoughts three thousand miles away in a little Ohio town. When I had finished I arose in grim silence, took the music, held it toward the chief executioner, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... among all the inhabitants of Venice! Monstrous! Because they were the enemies of this infamous government, because they were reputed heretics, were they to languish in The Leads where he had languished twenty-five years ago, or were they to perish under the executioner's axe? He detested the government a hundred times more than they did, and with better reason. He had been a lifelong heretic; was a heretic to-day, upon sincerer conviction than them all. What a queer ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... probably never know now; but the fact remains that, instead of turning out the Fiend I'd been led to expect, he was one of the most considerate men I've ever met. He wouldn't even let me unlock my own boxes, but took the keys and opened them for me himself. (Didn't an executioner braid the hair of some queen whose head he was going to chop off? I must look the incident up, when I have time.) Anyway, I thought of it when the Custom House man was being so polite; but the analogy didn't go any farther, for my ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... which was indignantly denied by Bragadino. The pasha, becoming enraged, ordered the four Venetians to be put to death, and in a few minutes Generals Baglioni, Martinengo, and Quirini were executed in the presence of Bragadino, for whom a more terrible death was reserved. The executioner cut off his nose and ears; three times he was made to lay his head upon the block, as if to be beheaded, then, heavily chained, was thrown into a dark dungeon, and left for nine ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... do; I had warned myself. Would I sacrifice a retribution sacred and comprehensive, for the momentary triumph over an individual? If not, let me forbear to look out of doors; for I felt that in the selfsame moment in which I saw the dog of an executioner raise his accursed hand against my mother, swifter than the lightning would my dagger search his heart. When I heard the roar of the cruel mob, I paused—endured—forbore. I stole out by by-lanes of the city from my poor exhausted sisters, whom I left sleeping in each other's innocent arms, into ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... thing is to see this executioner chap going along behind all the kneeling figures, afore he knocks their heads off, and pulling this one here and a-shovin' that one theer, so arrangin' on 'em that he can have a clean stroke when he ups ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... said she, pointing to Lepretre. The four accused, who were included in a common alibi, fell by this one admission under the executioner's axe. They rose and bowed to her ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... up his abode. He seized them, held them prisoners all night, and led them out in the morning to be the principal actors in a farce which he dared not turn to tragedy. Condemned to death, their sins confessed, they heard the tolling of the great bell, and stood bareheaded before the executioner. The scene was prepared with the art of a consummate playwright, and the spectators were delighted by a speech of rare eloquence and amazed by the sudden exhibition of a clemency that was born of fear. Magnanimously pardoning those whom he dared not destroy, Rienzi received a new oath ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... in this, as in almost every other respect connected with the subject, there is a considerable degree of cant, and a very great deal of wilful blindness. If a man be viciously disposed—and with very few exceptions, not a man dies by the executioner's hands, who has not been in one way or other a most abandoned and profligate character for many years—if a man be viciously disposed, there is no doubt that he will turn his Sunday to bad account, that he will take ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... Law as it appears to the imagination of the lower classes; something terrible, indefinable, inevitable, which is everywhere, and lurks in everyone's shadow; an omnipotent source of calamity which appears vaguely in the judge's black gown, between the police sergeant and the executioner, with the hands of the gendarme and the arms of the guillotine! She, who was subject to all the instinctive terrors of the common people, and who often repeated that she would much rather die than appear before the court—she ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... was forced to dance through the gloomy night. The shoes carried her over stack and stone; she was torn till she bled; she danced over the heath till she came to a little house. Here, she knew, dwelt the executioner; and she tapped with her fingers at the window, and said, "Come out! come out! I cannot come in, for I ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... ever, from all that existence has to bestow—from all the high hopes I had so often conceived—from all the future excellence my soul so much delighted to imagine,—to spend a few weeks in a miserable prison, and then to perish by the hand of the public executioner. No language can do justice to the indignant and soul-sickening loathing that these ideas excited. My resentment was not restricted to my prosecutor, but extended itself to the whole machine of society. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... beautiful country," said the stern old Brown glancing upward to the eternal hills on his way to the gallows, as calmly as if he were returning home from a long journey. "So perish all such enemies of Virginia. All such enemies of the Union. All such foes of the human race," solemnly announced the executioner as he fulfilled ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... a peacock's tail in the full beauty, or of some meadow garnished with infinite kinds and diversity of pleasant flowers." Such was the discipline of Elizabeth's court that any man who struck another within it had his right hand chopped off by the executioner in a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Above was the executioner-in-chief, with two grim, truculent-looking assistants, making preparations for the fearful operation they were about to perform, or leaning indolently on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... electrocution was a very small one. We four members of the committee were, of course, present with the executioner, who was to act under their orders. The others were the United States Marshal, the governor of the gaol, the chaplain, and three members of the press. The room was a small brick chamber, forming an outhouse to the Central ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... favored by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It couldn't be at the stars; such a desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the high gallows, and he was going to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... he belongs to God," said Christian. "And hark 'ee, Matthew Quintal, if ever again you do such a dastardly, cowardly, brutal act, I'll take on myself the office of your executioner, and will beat out your brains. You know me, Quintal; ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... and in cases in which nothing of the kind occurs, the erotic feelings of childhood may still exercise influence later in life. As examples from world-literature, I may mention: Heine, who was still a boy when he was so greatly attracted by his Sefchen, the executioner's niece, whose personality made a definite impression on the poet's maturer work;[107] Goethe, whose friendship with the sister of the little Derones, likewise had certain artistic results; Dante, who first met his Beatrice at the age of nine years, and ever thenceforward remained under her ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... what was it? The situation of common hangman was offered me. The employment was disgusting and horrible; but, at the same time, it was all I could get, and that was a sufficient inducement for me to accept of it. I was, therefore, the common executioner; and in that employment for some time earned a living. It was terrible; but necessity compelled me to accept the only thing I could obtain. You now know the reason why I became what I ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... executioner; thou, the great, the dreadful, the eternal God. These words, therefore, as I have already said, signify that Christ the Mediator, through whom alone salvation comes, and by whom alone execution hath been deferred, now giveth up the soul, forbears to speak one syllable more for him, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... kind but firm; treating a man, although he may be a prisoner, as a man. If he violates rules, lock him up. Give him an opportunity to commune with himself and his Maker; also give him to understand that he is the executioner of his own sentence, and when he concludes that he can do right, release him. It matters not how vicious, how stubborn, or what kind of a temper he may have, when left with no one to talk to, and an opportunity to cool down, and ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... example to be made, extended lenity to some others who were tried the following day; and one convict, James Freeman, was pardoned on condition of his becoming the public executioner. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... be; God would not allow it! Spurling himself had said that he had not sunk so low as that. Yet, in case it might be so, he would keep his word and help him to escape—from the Mounted Police, but not from himself. He would be the executioner if there must be one. The law should not rob him of his revenge. He would save Spurling's life in case he ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the rope, the mulatto pulled it gently at first, but gradually increasing the pressure upon the prisoner's throat, as if to give him a satisfactory foretaste of the hanging sensation. This slow torture was too much for the attorney's fortitude; and, as his respiration grew painful, he called to his executioner to stop. Hatchie promptly ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... member of your family shall be respited, but on one condition.' To the agonised family conditions are as nothing. But they don't know the man of iron is determined to make a terrible example, and they cry, 'Any conditions.' 'He who is respited must serve as executioner to the others.' Great is the doom; you understand; but after all the name must be saved. Then in the family council the father goes to his youngest son and says, 'I have been a good father to you, my son; I have always been a kind father, have I not? answer me; I have never refused ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... said 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 ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... most abstruse points of the controversy concerning the Nature of Christ, without apparently one wavering thought as to the Deity of the Son of Mary. There, in the 'Consolation,' a book written in prison and in disgrace, with death at the executioner's hands impending over him—a book in which above all others we should have expected a man possessing the Christian faith to dwell upon the promises of Christianity—the name of Christ is never once mentioned, the tone, though religious and reverential, is that of a Theist only; ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... in the mere demonstration of hostility, and gently gathering up his oar gave the countryman the right of way. The courage of the latter rose as the danger passed, and as far as he could be heard, he continued to exult in the wildest excesses of insult: "Ah-heigh! brutal executioner! Ah, hideous headsman!" Da capo. I now know that these people never intended to do more than quarrel, and no doubt they parted as well pleased as if they had actually carried broken heads from the encounter. But at the time I felt affronted and trifled with ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... sensation in England, as well they might, for they heralded the struggle which within half a century was to deliver up James's son to the executioner. The Parliament of 1604 met in angrier mood than any Parliament which had assembled at Westminster since the dethronement of Richard II. Among the churches non-conformity began more decidedly to assume the form of secession. The key-note ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... of a few moments, his EYES WERE DUG OUT, AND THEIR SOCKETS FILLED WITH HOT EMBERS!! All this time the prisoner instead of bewailing his fate, seemed to surpass his tormentors in expressions of joy. At length when exhausted with loss of blood and unable to stand, his executioner closed the tragic scene by beating out his brains with a ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... people accustomed to live in the bright rays of the sun, and sung by the people and their princes, is most impressive. There is something relentless in that slow phrase of music; it is cold and sinister, like an iron bar wielded by some celestial executioner, and dropping in regular rhythm on the limbs of all his victims. As we hear it passing from C minor into G minor, returning to C and again to the dominant G, starting afresh and fortissimo on the tonic B flat, ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... he should myself, but I'm not the public executioner, and one can't fight a duel ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... very well pleased with the arrangement. Particularly pleased was I with Piragoff's transparent plan for disposing of me. For, now that it really came to action, I found myself shying somewhat at the office of executioner; though I meant to do my duty all the same. But the fact that this man was already arranging coolly to murder me made my task less unpalatable. The British sporting ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... the executioner of Madrid!" repeated he. "I have never committed crime in my life, though my blade has been reddened with the blood of my fellow-creatures. Yet no man takes my hand,—no man breaks bread or drinks wine with me. I, the dread minister of justice, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... in his palace for the return of the Magi; and his secret executioner was at hand, ready to set out for Bethlehem at any moment. And when he found that they had discovered his hypocrisy and wicked intentions, and that his infamous design was thwarted, his rage knew no bounds; and he vowed to himself that the Child-King should not ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... dogs!" I 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 a deliberate ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... frightened and strangling lieutenant; and, as his executioner again relaxed a little, he continued: "Just let me up, and I'll do ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... of our father's fate, Abhorred, dishonored, self-convinced of sin, Blinded, himself his executioner. Think of his mother-wife (ill sorted names) Done by a noose herself had twined to death And last, our hapless brethren in one day, Both in a mutual destiny involved, Self-slaughtered, both the slayer and the ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... herself up erect. "No, I do not despise you, but I love you, and because I love you I will not that you should be a criminal. Had you poisoned the count, then I should have said, 'You have accomplished a good work. God has killed him by your hand; you are nothing more than the executioner, who has inflicted merited death upon the wicked, and has rid the world of him. Lift up your head and be joyful, for you were a tool in God's hand!' But you have poisoned a noble, good man, the son of your benefactress, and his death would cry out against you, and our child ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Marie Louise, and she primped herself like another Mary Queen of Scots receiving a call from the executioner. She was calmed by the hope that she would learn her fate, at least, and she cared little what it was, so long as ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Sunday and feast-day, "with ringing of bells and with candles lighted and then extinguished and thrown upon the earth, in token of eternal malediction."[181] Leclerc was discovered, and taken to Paris for trial. The barbarous sentence of parliament was, that he be whipped in Paris by the common executioner on three successive days, then transferred to Meaux to receive the like punishment, and finally branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron, before being ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... pride as no doubt they hoped to do. This spirit bore him through those few moments that preceded the first words of his mock interrogation, but he felt himself shrink on the floor when he saw the slightest movement on the part of his executioner. The torture of that short period was the refinement of cruelty, but never for one moment did he waver from his fixed determination to face his inquisitors like a man and ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... who had watched him with such concern sprang forward and clasped her arms around the poor prisoner, looking up at the Indian emperor with beseeching eyes. It was Pocahontas, his favorite daughter. Her looks touched the old man's heart, and he bade the executioner to stand back, and gave orders that the captive should be released. Powhatan soon showed that he was in earnest in his act of mercy. He treated the prisoner in a friendly fashion, and two days later set him free ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... death!" 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 the mastership before ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... the inscription over his head should state that there was no fault found in him but only that he was a Christian. This picture my sister wants to buy, shows him stripped and bound to the tree, and the executioner's work going on. Arrows are piercing him in various places; and the saint's face is raised to heaven with the look upon it of struggling pain and triumphing faith together. You can see that the ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... better than republics; for many, they will ever so remain. And better, on 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 ax ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... wicked by men or by devils, who play a large, and to themselves thoroughly enjoyable and merry, part here. The sculptor would seem to have witnessed the punishment of the blasphemer; how adroitly the executioner planted knee on the culprit's bosom, as he lay on the ground, and out came the sinful tongue, to meet the iron pincers. The minds of those who worked thus seem to have been almost insanely preoccupied just then with the human countenance, but by no means exclusively in ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... confess to you that when, having fired wide, they turned to go and the cheat was evident, twice before you pulled the bandage away I had lifted my gun. But I could not fire it, cavalier. To make me your executioner! Me, your wife—and while you thought so vilely ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... mad act, we might have gone our way unmolested. Such is your crime and its consequences; and if I deliver you up to the crew, and explain what you have done, they will save me the trouble of being your executioner. Take him on deck," he said, in Romaic, to the men who held Paolo. "I will follow shortly; and you may, meantime, make preparations to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... shame on their brows,—pale, panting, terrified, despairing,—despairing with I know not what horrible despair,—shrinking under that public reprobation which ought to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive treatment, the executioner,—the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the scaffold and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn,—his shoulders bloody,—still he resists. At length, after three-quarters of an hour of this monstrous ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... Mayton, that my experience has been the reverse of a pleasant one. If King Herod were yet alive I'd volunteer as an executioner." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a silence. Eleanor's being was flooded with the strangest, most ecstatic sense of deliverance. She had been her own executioner; and ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... years before, would have thought himself honoured by a glance or a word from the daughter of so many Caesars, should call her the Austrian woman, should send her from jail to jail, should deliver her over to the executioner, was surely a great event in his life. Whether he had reason to be proud of it or ashamed of it, is a question on which we may perhaps differ from his editors; but they will admit, we think, that he ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... took off his hat and handed it to him, and then, letting go of Jurgis' arm, tried to get out of his overcoat. After two or three attempts he accomplished this, with the lackey's help, and meantime a second man had approached, a tall and portly personage, solemn as an executioner. He bore straight down upon Jurgis, who shrank away nervously; he seized him by the arm without a word, and started toward the door with him. Then suddenly came Master Freddie's voice, "Hamilton! My fren' will remain ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... from his heart before God, he hath gained. For God can do nothing but to be merciful towards them that humble themselves. For if God should always be stern and angry, so should I, said Luther, be afraid of him as of the executioner. And seeing that I must stand in fear of the Pope, of the Emperor, of the Papistical Bishops, and of other tyrants, which are God's enemies, to whom then should I fly and take my refuge, if I should ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... a warning example to the German scribblers, and remind them of the penalty incurred by those who stir up resistance against me by their insults and sneers. I will silence these libellers once for all, and destroy their contemptible free press by the executioner's axe. The punishment inflicted upon Palm seemed not sufficient—let M. Lange, then, be another warning to them. Let him die ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Raleigh on the 29th of October, 1618, standing by the block, addressing the executioner and the multitude, when handling the shining axe: "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases!" Lying down and fitting himself to the block, the executioner asked him to alter the position of his head, when he replied: "It is no matter which ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... hearts,' as your uncle has often called him. He is a daring notoriety seeker, and this is rare sport for him." Mrs. Garrison's eyes were blazing, her hands were clenched, her bearing that of one who is both judge and executioner. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... on this probably mythical gentleman as one of the glories of our family. And then there was an old man—very old—who walked up and down Sixth Street with his head wrapped in a bandanna handkerchief, bearing a parrot on his shoulder. The boys of the neighbourhood believed that he was Sanson, the executioner of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. We shivered when we saw him; but we boasted of his existence in our neighbourhood, all the same. After I had read "Cagliostro" I devoured every line on the subject of the French Revolution I could find. It seemed to me that I would have ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... engine to be employed on trifles. Who wants a wheel to break a butterfly upon; or, to crush a worm who calls for a pavior's rammer? Monsieur Montigny, listen. Mercy is Heaven's first attribute, and the executioner is the State's meanest, as well as last, servant; shall I, then, stoop to this, who may aspire to that? Shall I wield a whip of legal scorpions before your son, should he seek to re-enter Stillyside? Would you have me, as once Heaven's ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... Nature has supplied his lordship with characteristics of countenance admirably befitting such a scene. Had he been only elevated to the kindred office of actual executioner, he would have been spared the expense of a mask; for without it, no one could look into his eyes. Of course, he was teeming with compassion and regret, which jointly resulted in a sentence of transportation for TEN YEARS. Mr. O'Doherty, who stood unmoved, after a few preliminary ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... no more. Indeed, it hastened to assure the executioner that it was only too anxious to be comfortably pinned ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sent orders to the governors in the several provinces for the Huguenots to be murdered, Viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the King: 'Sire, Among the inhabitants of this town, and your Majesty's troops, I could not find so much as one executioner; they are honest citizens and brave soldiers. We jointly, therefore, beseech your Majesty to command our arms and lives in things that are practicable.' This great and generous soul looked upon a base action as ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... in these hidden, secret chambers. These Turks were as much masters here as their old predecessors who had reared these stones. This black upon his heels might have been the grinning, faithful executioner of some Khedive or Caliph—he might have been the very Masrur, the Sworder of Vengeance ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... weep, but were not able to touch the hearts of her tormentors. You had ordered her to be racked, if she would not retract. They did not ask her whether she would do this—they racked her. But her soul was strong and full of courage; and, under the tortures of the executioner, her lips remained mute. Let theologians say and determine whether Anne Askew's faith was a false one; but this they will not dare deny: that in the noble enthusiasm of this faith, she was a heroine who at least did not deny ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... the fire, nor all the brimstone and tortures they endure, which murders them alive. No, no; it is the domestical cause of all these mischiefs that racks their consciences and is their crudest executioner. This, this is the greatest of their evils; for a soul that has shaken off the fetters of flesh and blood, and is full of the love of God, no more disordered with unruly passions, nor blinded with the night of ignorance, sees clearly the vast injury she has done to herself to have offended ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
