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More "Melee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had his eye upon a place connected with the city pound. When the great railroad strike occurred, he promptly got himself engaged as deputy-sheriff, and spent a memorable week in Sacramento, where he involved himself in more than one terrible melee with the strikers. Marcus had that quickness of temper and passionate readiness to take offence which passes among his class for bravery. But whatever were his motives, his promptness to face danger could not for a moment be doubted. After the strike he returned to Polk Street, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... attempt had failed, Mr Braine and the doctor rushed to the assistance of the others, and a fierce melee ensued in the darkness, wherein the fresh comers, who dared not use their revolvers for fear of injuring friends, devoted their principal efforts to keeping the enemy from using their krises, weapons admirably suited for a ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... revolver in the fall. With clenched fists he struck hard and sure. They swarmed upon him, so many that they got in each other's way. Now he was down, now up again. They swayed to and fro in a huddle, as does a black bear surrounded by a pack of dogs. Still the man at the heart of the melee struck—and struck—and struck again. Men went down and were trodden under foot, but he reeled on, stumbling as he went, turning, twisting, hitting hard and sure with all the strength that many good clean years in the open had stored within him. Blows fell upon his curly head as it rose now and ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... contagion of the pest-ridden sick. To them Roland gave his horse from preference. Three fell dead from the saddle; he mounted his horse after them, and reached Cairo safe and sound. At Aboukir he flung himself into the melee, reached the Pasha by forcing his way through the guard of blacks who surrounded him; seized him by the beard and received the fire of his two pistols. One burned the wadding only, the other ball passed under his arm, killing ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... circumstance. In the first place, only the shortest moment of time is available for consideration, and then this rapid consideration and decision have to be given under the most unfavourable external conditions, at the fullest speed of one's horse, or in the maddening confusion of the melee. Further, in most, cases it will be quite impossible for the Leader of a Cavalry 'Mass' to take in with accuracy the strength and dispositions of the enemy. The more extended radius of action of modern firearms and the greater distance between the ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... society are infinitely more numerous and infinitely finer than those of strategy. Woe betide the rash knight who dashes into the thick of the polished melee without some slight experience of his barb and his lance! Let him look to his arms! He will do well not to appear before his helm be plumed with some reputation, however slight. He may be very rich, or even very poor. We have seen that answer with a Belisarius-like air; and more ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... was caught by Still on his forty-five. With good interference he secured five before he was thrown. Brimfield, still working fast, reached the opponent's thirty-five before a punt was again necessary. This time Innes passed low and Freer kicked into the melee and the pigskin danced and bobbed around for many doubtful moments before Marvin snuggled it under him on the Morgan's forty-three yards. From there a forward went to Still and gained seven, and, playing desperately, the Brimfield backs ploughed through for two firsts ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sailed into the melee with renewed energy. Jasper was a powerfully-built fellow, but the three were too many for him. They tripped Jasper, throwing him to the deck, and Hepton sat upon ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... young woodsman, utterly unused to the ways of the sea, the next half-hour was a bewildering melee of hurrying, sweating toil, with low-spoken orders and half-caught oaths and the glimmer of a dying fire over all the scene. He was rowed to the sloop with the first boatload and there Job Howland set him to work passing water-kegs into ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... masters bravely through any game of battle or tourney such as the King loved to organize when he had his knights round him. It was often that the esquires as well as the knights competed in these contests of skill and strength, or followed their masters into some great melee, and it was a point of honour with the latter that their followers should be well and suitably ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Allen, catching hold of Jock's ear so as to end his war-dance in a howl, bringing the ponderous Rob to the rescue, and there was a general melee, ending by all the five rolling promiscuously on the gravel drive. They scrambled up with recovered tempers, and at the sight of an indignant housemaid rushed in a general stampede to the two large attics opening into one another, which served as the lair of the Folly lads. There, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrested his advance, but forced him off to six or eight times that distance from his enemies. Luckily for him, all of the Indians had dropped their rifles in the pursuit, or this retreat might not have been effected with impunity; though no one had noted the canoe in the first confusion of the melee. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... fear that the little force of one hundred men was about to be attacked and overcome by mere force of numbers while off their guard, lost his head, and began to use his sword; the others, seeing their comrade fighting, rushed into the melee and before reason could get the upper hand, the mischief was done. The natural consequence of this unprovoked massacre was a general flight of the Indians from their towns, all who could, taking refuge in the ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... that time he was not an abolitionist, and, perhaps because he had married the daughter of a slave owner, he had taken no strong position either for or against slavery. One day an officer arrested a black man in St. Louis who resisted arrest, and in the melee the officer was killed. His friends claimed that the negro was a freeman, and that there was a plot to kidnap him and sell him into the Southern cotton fields, and that he had a right to resist. The real facts will, doubtless, never be known. To slave ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and exciting rush before we got through; and I have but little recollection of what took place beyond the fact that I struck out right and left in melee after melee, wherein blows were aimed at us with the butts and barrels of rifles, and shots fired at close quarters, but in almost every case I believe without effect. Then the call rang out, "Halt!" and, with our enemies at a distance, we formed ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... it. The crowd rose in an uproar. The base runners began to score. I left my bench and ran across the space, but not in time to catch the Rube. I saw him hit two or three of the Providence men. Then the policemen got to him, and a real fight brought the big audience into the stamping melee. Before the Rube was collared I saw at least four blue-coats ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... learn what they severally represent in relation to Genoese politics, Gianettino pulls a string and has a sanction for the wholesale murder of his countrymen. Fiesco pulls another string and gets men and galleys ad libitum. We do not see an intelligible clash of great political ideas, but a wild melee, in the outcome of which we have no reason to be particularly interested. It is all as little tragic as a back-country vendetta, or a factional fight in the halls of a ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the precautions to prevent the mischief that might happen at these martial exercises few were exhibited in which a great number were not wounded, some killed in the melee, others crushed by the falling of the scaffolds, or trod to death by the horses. Kings, princes, and gallant knights from every part of Europe have perished at different times while attending or taking part in those mimic ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... the bitterest. Somebody goes on very well with his friends, agreeing most cordially about everything, till he finds that his public virtue cannot swallow some little detail, and then he resigns. Or some one, perhaps, on the other side has attacked him, and in the melee he is hurt, and so he resigns. But when he has resigned, and made his parting speech full of love and gratitude, I know well after that where to look for the bitterest hostility to his late friends. Yes, I am beginning to ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... tumble struggle ensued, in which blows were given and taken freely. Snap was struck in the breast and in the cheek, but not seriously hurt. In the melee Shep managed to squirm free from those who held him and he quickly ranged ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... prisoners in the tower in the charge of a couple of guards, these prisoners being Brooke, Talbot, and Russell. During the attack on the castle there was a time in which Russell might very easily have escaped. The two guards were eager to join the melee, and as their instructions had reference principally to Brooke and Talbot, they paid no attention whatever to the "Hungarian lady." They knew that Rita had done an act for which the captain would reward her, and ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... threaten his wife and children, rob him of his gun, and pass on to repeat their lawless deeds; menacing some, beating and shooting others; not always sparing women or children; the latter perhaps, being hurt accidentally in the melee. ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... hurled itself against Captain Richland's company. The Confederate leader was supported by half a dozen "fire-eaters," and about two score men; and although the charge was not entirely successful, yet in the general melee resulting, the captain and about half of those behind him managed to escape. The others were either shot down or added to ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... quite fifty of the tethered steeds had broken loose in the excitement, and were rushing here and there and fighting in a most alarming way. I have always had a dread of horse-fights, and this was not a single fight; it was a melee, fresh horses every minute breaking loose to join it. Right in my way two angry stallions rose up, boxing one another like the lion and the unicorn, and a little boy of ten or thereabouts ran in between and, jumping, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... must have been for that solitary window and a mouthful of fresh air! Lions, tigers, jackals, hyaenas, boa-constrictors, kangaroos, eagles, owls, bees, wasps, bluebottles, with Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives, all in one fierce melee. But the contention for the precious vital air must, however violent, have soon subsided: fifteen minutes would have settled them all. Yet curiously enough the choking animals-suffered no appreciable injury; by some occult means ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... criticisms of the Boers, were saying hard things of people nearer home. They had a grievance against the butcher and his manipulation of the meat. The clamour at the shambles of the butcher despot was growing in volume. Hungry masses crowded the shops, and that some should emerge meatless from the melee was inevitable. Nepotism was reputed to be much in vogue. The Colonel had curbed the meat vendors in the matter of price; a strictly limited number of oxen were slaughtered daily, but the number was sufficient to provide everyone with his or her half-pound ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... of their fascination. A football game is also a fight, with the additional qualification that no injury is planned, and with an advantage over the prize fight in the fact that it is not a single-handed conflict, but an organized melee—a battle where the action is more massive and complex and the strategic opportunities are multiplied. It is a fact of interest in this connection that, unless appearances are deceptive, altogether the larger number of visitors to a university ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... turned toward the speaker, whose voice had a strong Gascon accent, and saw a young man from twenty to twenty-five, resting his hand on the crupper of the horse of the first speaker. His head was bare; he had probably lost his hat in the melee. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... and space enough to beware of the wreck and to give it a wide berth, among them Marcus. The melee at the Meta had excited his steeds almost beyond control, and as they tore past the Taraxippos the third horse, Megaera, shied violently as Demetrius had predicted. She flung herself on one side, thrust her hind quarters under the pole, and kicked desperately, lifting the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Rui Fernandez with about thirty of his men succeeded in reaching land in canoes, seized the fort without any difficulty, and although his followers were so few managed to disperse a body of the enemy who were approaching, with the English governor at their head, to recover it. In the melee the governor was one of the first to be killed—stabbed, say the Spaniards, by the Irishman, who took active part in the expedition and fought by the side of Rui Fernandez. Meanwhile some of the inhabitants, thinking that they could not hold the island, had regained the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... one smoking a short pipe and the other snapping the ash from a scented cigarette, stood aloof from the hurrying throngs on the platform, looking on with the measured interest of those who are in a melee but not ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... labor, and caused some loss of temper; and our china-closet was altogether too small for the officials who had to wash the china there, and they were constantly at odds with my mother for her firmness in resisting their tendency to carry our china and silver to the general melee of the kitchen sink. Moreover, our dining-room not having been constructed with an eye to modern expansions of the female toilet, it happened that, if our table was to be enlarged for guests, there arose serious questions of the waiter's crinoline to complicate ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Poniatowski. The rear-guard was momentarily severed from the line, but these two generals wheeled and fiercely attacked the advancing Russians, engaging all within reach until Davout was able to evade the melee and rejoin ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... little hideout; as soon as the shooting started in earnest, they were going to clean out this woods but good. It was going to be a fine barrage, with guns going off in all directions, because it is hard to keep your head in a melee. Esper and telepathy go by the board ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... children—often in delicate children who have lost confidence in themselves from being habitually outdone by stronger brothers and sisters, or in slow minds which seem "stupid" to others and to themselves, or in natures too sensitive to risk themselves in the melee. To these, one who brings the gift of encouragement comes as a deliverer and often changes the course of their life, leading them to believe in themselves and their own good endowments, making them taste success which rouses them to better efforts, giving them the strong comfort of knowing that ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... jury, the pinch of the case lies in the interval of two hours interposed betwixt the reception of the injury and the fatal retaliation. In the heat of affray and CHAUDE MELEE, law, compassionating the infirmities of humanity, makes allowance for the passions which rule such a stormy moment—for the sense of present pain, for the apprehension of further injury, for the difficulty of ascertaining with due accuracy the precise degree of violence which ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... known that the King had stricken out the melee, or pitched battle of the second day, when all comers gentle and simple were by ancient custom allowed to range themselves in two parties under the banners of the victorious knight and him who stood second, all were of one opinion, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... each nearly equal in strength to the Italians, were seen. There was a movement among the Sardinian horse. They formed into two bodies and dashed at the Russians. There was a cloud of dust, swords could be seen flashing in the sun, a confused melee for a minute or two, and then the Russians broke and rode across the plain, pursued ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... and rear, while it soon became evident that the aim of the assailants was to reach the queen's chariot, doubtless in the hope of being able to secure possession of it and drive it off through the melee. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... the smugglers, when they mounted the poop of the Coquette; and the steeled staff on which the lantern was perched, had been struck into a horse-bucket by the standard-bearer of the moment, ere he entered the melee of the combat. During the conflagration, this object had more than once met the eye of Ludlow; and now it appeared floating quietly by him, in a manner almost to shake even his contempt for the ordinary superstitions of seamen. While he hesitated ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the morning of the 9th, not dreaming, I suppose, that there were any Union soldiers near. The Confederates were surprised to find our cavalry had possession of the trains. However, they were desperate and at once assaulted, hoping to recover them. In the melee that ensued they succeeded in burning one of the trains, but not in getting anything from it. Custer then ordered the other trains run back on the road towards ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of infantry. In a melee, the infantryman with his bayonet has at least an even chance with the cavalryman, but the main dependence of infantry is rifle fire. Any formation is suitable that permits the free use of ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... was like a melee on the front line after a charge, as I found out later on. There were some three hundred men newly drafted into the Third Battalion; there were some three hours in which we had to get our equipment and learn to adjust it. As it was, many of the extreme greenhorn type marched ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... exhibited on the parade ground was renewed, by some evil-minded person, and the colored population, becoming roused to madness, they proceeded to wreak their vengeance on a company in Stinson's tavern, after which a general melee took place, in which several men were wounded, and it is likely some will die of the injuries received. The colored village is a ruin, and much more like a place having been beseiged by an enemy than any thing else. This ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... succeeded to impending defeat, and the enemy was routed. The riders and cuirassiers, broken into a struggling heap of confusion, strewed the ground with their dead bodies, or carried dismay into the ranks of the infantry as they strove to escape. Brunswick went down in the melee, mortally wounded as it was believed. Egmont renewing the charge at the head of his victorious Belgian troopers, fell dead with a musket-ball through his heart. The shattered German and Walloon cavalry, now pricked forward by the lances of their companions, under the passionate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... up. Yes, there came a strange, but welcome sight: a great creature with enormous, leathery pinions was circling down towards the tower top! A clashing of weapons brought Nelson's eyes earthwards. He joined in a furious melee at the stair top, like the Atlanteans, using a captured bronze sword. There came a deep groan as the right-hand Atlantean collapsed with a bloodied bronze spear point standing far out from ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... at one time, shortly before dawn, a gang of rioters actually broke into the palace and groped about in search of the queen's apartments. Just in the nick of time the hated Marie Antoinette hurried to safer quarters, although several of her personal bodyguard were killed in the melee. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... drumming on the ground, and the sputtering fire of carbines making an uneven kind of lightning along the improvised wood barricades. Black tree trunks gleamed greasily in the wet; and here and there, out of defiance, the war whoop of the Yell cut eerily through the melee. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... accustomed to fight with the edge, and to strike downright sweeping blows, whereas the swords here are fitted only for the point, which, although doubtless superior in a duel, is far less effective in a general melee." ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... unnecessary to dwell upon. Unless its intent is honest, and its editors independent of influence from any self-interested source, the literary tournament of criticism becomes either a parade of the virtues with banners for the favorites, or a melee where rivals seek revenge. Venal criticism is the drug and dishonest criticism the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... wilds of British Columbia. He is a big man, a natural-born fighter. To prove this he inflicted a black eye and a split lip on Paul Lorimer, a broken nose and sundry bruises on James L. Brooks. Also Allen T. Bray and Edward Gurney Parkinson suffered certain contusions in the melee. The fracas occurred in the office of the Free Gold Mining Company, 1546 Broad Street, at three-thirty this afternoon. While hammering the brokers a police officer arrived on the scene and Wagstaff ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the crash of steel upon steel, the hideous melee, where friend and foe seemed blent in one dense struggling mass; the cries which pain sometimes extorted from the bravest; the shouts of the excited combatants, until Edmund's ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the more formidable as an opponent because he could be angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulay writes to Mr. Napier in February 1831: "People here ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... quiet Ambrose with hot impulse to defend his brother. All his gentle, scholarly habits gave way before that cry, and a shout that he took to be Stephen's voice in the midst of the melee. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... have lost our big Standard-Bearer that day, if our bigger Dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the melee when he was wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death by our own horse, if the Dwarf had not promptly rescued him and haled him to the rear and safety. He recovered, and was himself again after two or three hours; and then he was happy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was full of soldiers! but the rest of the order was easier said than obeyed. The robbers, knowing their doom was death, fought with the fury of desperation, and a snort, wild, and terrible conflict ensued. Foremost in the melee was Sir Norman and the count; while Hubert, who had taken possession of the dwarf's sword, fought like a young lion. The shrieks of the women were heart-rending, as they all fled, precipitately, into the blue dining-room; and, crouching in corners, or flying ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... out of that melee of flying hoofs and prodding horns without being at least seriously injured was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, and each trying to flank the rear of the other, will eventually circle around a common center; and if the effort to improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will narrow until the battle becomes a melee. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the confusion created by the erratic movements of the Tsarevich was at its height, the Peresviet displayed a signal from her bridge and, sheering out of the melee, headed away back in the direction of Port Arthur, followed by the Sevastopol and Poltava, while the Askold, Admiral Reitsenstein's flagship, followed by the cruisers Diana, Pallada, and Novik, broke away from the rest of the fleet and, under every ounce of steam that they ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... made at us. What with the lashing of the coachmen riding post-haste to see the fray, the jostling chairmen calling out "A fight! A fight!" and the 'prentices yelling at the top of their voices for "A watch! A watch!" we had had it hot enough then and there for M. Radisson's sport; but above the melee sounded another shrill alarm, the "Gardez l'eau! Gardy loo!" of some French kitchen wench throwing her breakfast slops to mid-road ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... impassible as they are to-day when a representative of one of the royal families of Europe is placed on exhibition. At the New York state fairs during the early '50s the tournaments of the volunteer fire department of the various cities throughout the state formed one of the principal attractions. Many a melee occurred between the different organizations because they considered that they had not been properly recognized in the line of march or had not been awarded a medal for throwing a stream of water farther ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... with something of the helplessness induced by some vast clashing of the elements. It seems so outside one's jurisdiction. One is oppressed with a sense of the futility of interference. And this was no ordinary dog fight. It was a stunning melee, which would have excited favourable comment even among the blase residents of a negro quarter or the not easily-pleased critics of a Lancashire mining-village. From all over the beach dogs of every size, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... murder me in order to abduct two ladies that night over in Billingsgate. That you cannot deny. I watched you follow the ladies from Bridewell to Grouche's, and saw your face when your mask fell off during the melee as plainly as I see it now. If other proof is wanting, there is that sprained knee upon which your horse fell, causing you to limp even yet. I am sure now that my lord will meet me like a man; or would he prefer that I should go to the king and tell him and the world the whole shameful story? ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... his feet and charged into the melee, shouting at the top of his lungs and swinging both fists. The first person he saw was one of the teen-agers, and he charged ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the blacksmith, wielding a heavy sledge hammer, did valiant service, clearing a space around him with little difficulty. Joe Wegg, Arthur Weldon, Cox the detective, Lon Taft, Nick Thome and even little Skim Clark were all in the melee, fighting desperately for time to enable Thursday Smith to work his press, using whatever cudgels they had been able to pick up to keep the assailants from the pole. Slowly, however, they were forced back by superior ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... phantasmagoria of grotesque forms spinning around him as he struck with all the power of his earthly muscles and felt crocodilian forms staggering and going down beneath his frenzied blows. He heard the roar of an automatic close beside him in the melee as Milton remembered at last through the red haze of his fury the weapon he carried, but before either Randall or Lanier could reach their own weapons a new wave of crocodilian forms had poured onto them that by sheer pressing weight held ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... fall back. The aggressors rallied again, however, only to be in like manner repulsed. Men were wounded on both sides and carried off and reported dead. The Negroes advanced courageously, and according to a reporter, fired down the street into the mass of ruffians, causing a hasty retreat. This melee continued until about one o'clock when a part of the mob secured an iron six pounder, hauled it to the place of combat against the exhortations of the powerless mayor, and fired on the Negroes. With this unusual advantage the blacks were forced to retreat, many of them going to the hills. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... talons were strong to close upon it. Now on the instant he wheeled, swooped with all his might upon the disordered vanguard of the English. Baldry and those with him fought madly, the English on foot made all haste; the prostrate figure, pinned beneath the dying bay, became the centre of a wild melee, the hotly contested prize of friend and foe! Then burst from the tunal, came at a run down the ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... told in favour of the Britishers. The short, heavy Navy cutlasses were much better adapted for a melee of this sort than the rifles and bayonets with which ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... and perhaps more ardent, the Pawnees had, however, reached the spot in sufficient numbers to force their enemies to retire. The victors pushed their success to the opposite shore, and gained the solid ground in the melee of the fight. Here they were met by all the unmounted Tetons, and, in their turn, they were forced to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... la Meilleraie added that in case the coadjutor should appear on the field of battle it would be a pity that he should not be distinguished in the melee by wearing a red hat, as Henry IV. had been distinguished by his white plume at the battle ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... long. The troopers of Mayenne wavered, and finally fled. Henry of Navarre emerged from the confusion, to the great relief of his anxious followers, safe and sound, covered with dust and blood not his own. More than once he had been in great personal peril. On his return from the melee, he halted, with a handful of companions, under the pear-trees indicated beforehand as a rallying-point, when he was descried and attacked by three bands of Walloon horse that had not yet engaged in the fight. Only his own valor and the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a horn, shrill and impatient, suddenly called the soldiers back to their ranks beside Master Carfax. Robin spied this worthy now; and saw that he bestrode a black horse clumsily—as if armored indeed. Simeon evidently had withdrawn his men from a melee for fear that in it he might not be properly protected. He was seen to be issuing orders very ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... undertook, always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the melee attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured him in the long chair, where during a feverish attack he had lain so often, ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... barrier, when the whole Syracusan fleet closed in upon them on all sides, and forced them back Then the battle became general, and soon the two fleets were scattered over the whole surface of the bay in little groups, and each group engaged in a wild and furious melee. There was no attempt to manoeuvre, but ship encountered ship; as accident brought them together, and advanced to the attack, under a shower of javelins and arrows. Then followed the dull crash of collision, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... and pistol shot, with blood spilled and bone splintered, with pain and tremendous horror and invading nausea, with delirium, with resurgence of the brute, with jungle triumph, Berserker rage and battle ecstasy came the shock—then, in a moment, the melee. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the nobles and their sons, enlisted. No Egyptian ever willingly trusted himself to the back of a horse, and it was only in the thick of a battle, when his chariot was broken, and there seemed no other way of escaping from the melee, that a warrior would venture to mount one of his steeds. There appear, however, to have been here and there a few horsemen, who acted as couriers or aides-de-camp; they used neither saddle-cloth ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... then saw that he had stabbed himself to the heart with his great knife. "Ho! ho!" cried Madoc, with a sinister smile, "our Dean has cheated the gallows. You others stay here while I go and notify the bailiff." He picked up his hat, that had fallen off during the melee, and left without another word. I remained opposite the corpse, with the ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... hopeless fight in the dark into a victorious campaign in broad daylight. Huxley's pessimistic saying that typhoid was like a fight in the dark between the disease and the patient, and the doctor like a man with a club striking into the melee, sometimes hitting the disease and sometimes the patient, is no longer true since ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... days after this affair, Jim Bilton, one of the men who had figured so conspicuously in the row, and owed Wilkins a grudge for the black eye he had received in the melee, challenged his shipmate ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Somehow in the melee the old man had again got hold of a revolver, and just as Fleck seized him he fired again. The bullet, aimed at Fleck, left him unharmed, but found a mark in Thomas Dean, who with a little gurgling cry, ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... whipping old Rene smartly. And in another minute we were thumping and bumping over great paving-stones, too noisily for conversation to be carried on, and getting into a melee of carts, wagons, and horsemen, all bound for Beaucaire. The women were now in great delight, looking from side to side, commenting on the dress of one, the equipage of another, nodding to acquaintance, and crying "O, look!" to each other, when they saw anything ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... with bedrolls that it resembled a haystack. Beyond the margin of the lake, four hundred fine saddle horses grazed and kicked and bit at one another. Beyond the saddle horses grazed the day herd of cattle. And over on the other side dinned the melee over the main herd, the incessant riding, yelling of the cowboys and the bawling of ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... to take what steps they could to insure his safety. I am told that what actually happened was that on one occasion his Royal Highness went to the aid of the police, hard pressed by a gang of rioters; and he was injured in the general melee. It all took place in a moment and of course no one had any idea that he would involve himself in it. When he was picked up by the detectives he gave a certain address." Here the Comptroller assumed an air of the utmost discretion. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... beast, standing fully erect, struck again and again at his victim, who threw his arms across his face to save it from being torn to pieces. Fearful blows from the bear's claw-shod paws rained upon Mr. C.'s head, and his scalp was almost torn away. In the melee he fell, and the bear pounced ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... becoming involved in the melee, I sprang from my sledge and watched the confused crowd as it swept with shout, bark, and halloo, across the plain. The whole encampment, which had seemed in its quiet loneliness to be deserted, was now ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... 'dumpling' I'll run you through the gizzard and give your miserable carcass to the dogs," suiting the action to the word, and groping under his cloak for the hilt of his sword.—A crowd collected, and the Yorkshireman perceiving symptoms of a scene, slunk out of the melee, and Mr. Jorrocks, after an indignant shake or two of his feathers and curl of his mustachios, pursued his ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... she was ever dreading smote her at length. For a messenger came one day, saying that Earl Evroc her lord had been slain at Bamborough, in a mighty melee between some of the best and most valiant knights of Logres and Alban, and ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... they threw themselves, dagger in hand, upon the Russians. The Abreks, in order that their line might not be broken, bound themselves to each other with their girdles, and hurled themselves into the melee. Quarter was neither asked nor given: all fell before the bayonets of the Russians. "Forward! follow me, Ammalat Bek," cried Djemboulat, with fury, rushing into the combat which was to be his last—"Forward! for us death is liberty." But Anmalat heard not his call; a blow from a musket on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... figures, and they were gone, and in their place roared and swelled the Chesapeake.... The sound of the storm became the sound of a battle-cry. He saw a clanging fight where sword clashed upon armor, and artillery belched fire and thunder, and horse and man went down in the melee, and were trampled under foot amidst shrieks and oaths and stern prayers. The boy who had leaned upon the dial fought coolly, desperately, drunk with the joy of battle, stung to fierce effort by his father's eyes. The ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... odor of fried pork floated upon the air from the direction of the cook tent, and people seemed to be rushing all over the lot in wildest confusion, but Jim caught a glimpse of a bit of pink-and-white check through the melee, and headed for it. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... giant's spring stood him in good stead. Before a rifle or a revolver could be brought to bear on the huge form, Alexis had come to such close quarters with his foes as to prevent the use of firearms. The German leader did draw his revolver, but the melee was so fierce and men were tangled up so that he was unable to fire for fear of hitting one ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... tramp of feet, a crowding and crushing up through the steep and narrow gorge, a mutter of suppressed voices, a fitful glancing of torches, which now flare up bravely enough, now wither in a moment before the derisive laugh of the storm. At the head of the melee there is a litter borne on the shoulders of a set of sure-footed hunters of the hills; and around this litter is clustered a moving constellation of lamps, which are anxiously shielded from the rude wrath of the tempest. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... bloodshed. I would have constructed a couple of immense dining-rooms, with all the necessary appurtenances. Just to think how different would have been the aspect of things in the chamber where Sumner once lay bleeding, and in the hall where a gentleman, in a melee, 'stubbed his toe and fell!' There would have been Mr. Breckinridge, in a canopied seat at the head of one of the tables, rapping the Senate to order with his knife-handle, and Mr. Orr at the head ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... measure this bold project. A formidable army threatened to carry it into execution. Already Switzerland trembled for her liberty; but deceitful fortune abandoned him in three terrible battles, and the infatuated hero was lost in the melee of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... spirit! (Shelley) Wilt thou be a blackleg? Nay. Soaring, sing above the melee, "Shorter ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... corner by the doorway. The hitting continued. Phipps, the Unitarian, had a front tooth broken, and Henfrey was injured in the cartilage of his ear. Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something that intervened between him and Huxter in the melee, and prevented their coming together. He felt a muscular chest, and in another moment the whole mass of struggling, excited men shot out into ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the thing went, just two short frames, but more real scrappin' was had in them few minutes than Europe will see if Ireland busts loose! Except that they was more principals, the battle of the Marne would have looked like a chorus men's frolic alongside of the Ross-Scanlan melee. They went at each other like peeved wildcats and the bell at the end of the first round only seemed to annoy 'em—they had to be jimmied apart. Ross opened the second round by knockin' Scanlan through the ropes ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... occupants. Nevertheless, Madame la voituriere, who, Stanhope explains, was not only dressed up to enact the part she had undertaken, but was "not of the mildest or most peaceable temper," forced a way through the melee with such success that, in due course, she deposited her travellers in safety at Brussels whither they were bound; when, to their extreme amusement, her task accomplished, she speedily "transformed herself into ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... closely to my argumentative German acquaintance of Bentheim and Aix. During the melee of changing cars I was, however, separated from him, and became engaged in conversation (spoken in English) with a Dutch chocolate merchant. The argument must have been interesting, for I did not at first notice a crowd of twenty or thirty travelers ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... their senses as those who had felt the full shock of the upheaval. Some of them even turned on the whites, who rushed so recklessly among them; so that for a minute a fierce hand-to-hand fight raged on the narrow strand, and even among the crowded canoes in the water. In the confusion of this melee Christie became separated from his men, and ere he realized the full peril of his position received several knife wounds in quick succession. Staggering under these, he fell, was instantly dragged into ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... startle him, he heard a wild clamor in which he could distinguish Pal's excited voice. Leaping from his hammock he quickly rounded the corner of the cabin and beheld a weird sight. A torch borne in the hand of a tall man cast a flickering light over a melee of dogs, leaping and barking about the foot of the pole which held Ringtail's snug home. Another but smaller figure stood near, pointing to the spot where, upon the platform before the birdhouse, two shining eyes looked down at the group. Pal was here, there and everywhere, loudly voicing ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... out of the fringe of the melee and came to his feet by the side of the bar, all distaste for fighting left him. He had found that he was very much like other men after all, and the imminent loss of part of his anatomy had scraped off twenty years of culture. Gambling without stakes is an insipid amusement, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... they all tumbled out of the tree—apparently unhurt. The hounds, of course, attacked them, and there arose a terrible uproar. Haught had to run down to save his dogs. Bill was going to shoot right into the melee, but Haught knocked the rifle up, and forbid him to use it. Then Bill ran into the thick of the fray to beat off the hounds. Haught became exceedingly busy himself, and finally disposed of two of the bears. Then hearing angry bawls and terrific yells he turned to see Bill climbing a tree ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... A melee. Passing platform shapes. The darting bolts, crossing like ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse-lights ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Dutchman running behind the counter, Dunn aimed another blow at him, which glanced from his arm and swept a tin drench, with a number of tumblers on it, into a smash upon the floor. This was the signal for a general melee, and it began in right earnest between the Dutch and the Irish,—for the Dutchman called the assistance of several kinsmen who were in the front store, and Dunn, with the assistance of Dusenberry, mustered ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Ballard's goal-line, and the touchdown that would give the Gold and Green that supreme glory. One minute to play; Deacon Radford had given Butch the pigskin, and like a berserker, he fought entirely through the scrimmage. But a kick on the head had blinded him, in the melee—free of tacklers, with the goal-line, victory, and the Championship so near, he staggered, reeled blindly, crashed into an upright, and toppled backward, senseless on the field, while the Referee's whistle announced the end of the game, and glory to Ballard. Even then, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... &c. (agitation) 315; to-do, trouble, pudder[obs3], pother, row, rumble, disturbance, hubbub, convulsion, tumult, uproar, revolution, riot, rumpus, stour[obs3], scramble, brawl, fracas, rhubarb [baseball], fight, free-for-all, row, ruction, rumpus, embroilment, melee, spill and pelt, rough and tumble; whirlwind &c. 349; bear garden, Babel, Saturnalia, donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair, confusion worse confounded, most admired disorder, concordia discors[Lat]; Bedlam, all ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in to meet him. There was a swift flying of arms, a pounding of the great fists, and Pete suddenly shot back from the melee and landed on his back in the dirt. One of the Frenchman's great swings had landed. But he was up in an instant and went after his ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... He's shot! They don't see him!" shouted Tad. He cried out at the top of his voice to attract the attention of the ranchers, but in the uproar, no one heard him. His voice in that mad melee was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... Once in the melee, clutching at their enemies, the combatants become oblivious of saintly affairs. The shoulders of the platform bearers bend—the platforms tumble—St. Patrick grapples with St. Michael, who smashes his pewter ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... work," Billy muttered over and over; and, though he saw much that occurred, assisted by the friendly Irishman he was coolly and safely working Saxon back out of the melee. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... which is in the land of Aup? 'Tis a bull on his frontier, the place where one sees the battle (melee) ...
— Egyptian Literature
... thing, now stood quite still. Every nerve was quivering to be off to the fire, which, from all appearances, must be a splendid one. The bells were clanging fast and furiously, hoarse cries were heard, as if raised from hundreds of throats, and now, to add to the general melee, an engine dashed around the corner. They could hear the mad plunge of the horses, the shouts of the people; and then off in the distance, yet approaching nearer each instant, was another and evidently a more ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... the melee, grasping the wrist of the Eurasian below where it was clutched by Gianapolis. Nodding to the Greek to release his hold, he ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... coronation took place in the great hall built by Vladislav, and the solemn ceremony was followed by a tournament, also held in the same hall—a tournament on horseback, mind you, and ending up with a melee in which thirteen knights a-side took part. There was a banquet too, and the waiting was done by squires on horseback. A great ball brought the festivities to an end. The great fire in Prague in 1541, which destroyed all the State documents, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... the suffocating melee would result in the death or permanent injury to some of us, I was at last dragged by a policeman to the edge of the crowd. Although I offered not the slightest resistance, I was crushed continuously in the arm by the officer who walked me to the police ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... Jack released his hold on Phil, and, maddened with rage, threw himself upon the other. Instantly there was a general melee. Phil did not wait to see the result. He ran to the door, and, emerging into the street, ran away till he had placed a considerable distance between himself and the disorderly and drunken party in the barroom. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of surprise and anger in Smellie's well-known voice, a single stifled scream from Dona Antonia, and a most unmistakable affray. With a shout I dashed up the path, and in another minute or less plunged into the thick of the melee. Smellie was beset by three of the ruffians, who were slashing viciously at him with long ugly-looking knives, and he was maintaining a gallant defence with the aid of a stout stick, the assistance of ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... without other assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the 'cargo load,' as it was called, made it necessary for them to linger and trade along the sugar-coast, and one night they were attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the melee, but succeeded in driving the negroes from the boat, and then 'cut cable,' 'weighed ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... succeeded in crossing the breach in the dike upon the mass of corpses which filled it up. He drew up his soldiers in order as they arrived, and putting himself at the head of those least severely wounded, plunged wedge-fashion into the melee, and succeeded in disengaging from it a portion of his men. Before day dawned all those who had succeeded in escaping from the massacre of the noche triste, as this terrible night was called, found themselves reunited at Tacuba. It was with eyes full of tears ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... mistrust, I had stationed myself behind Habeneck, and turning my back on him, overlooked the group of kettle-drums, which he could not see, when the moment approached for them to take part in the general melee. There are perhaps one thousand bars in my Requiem. Precisely in that of which I have just been speaking, when the movement is retarded, and the wind instruments burst in with their terrible flourish of trumpets; in fact, just in the one bar where the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Sclavonia; and one day, when a brisk skirmish took place, Morto, desiring to win a greater name in that profession than he had gained in the art of painting, went bravely forward, and, after fighting in the melee, was left dead on the field, even as he had always been in name,[13] at the age of forty-five. But in fame he will never be dead, because those who exercise their hands in the arts and produce everlasting works, leaving memorials of themselves ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... Club, but in every drawing-room in May Fair; and declared that the 'Dear Duck' letter, and various other matters, must be explained, and urged somebody to speak; and then, when Campbell does speak with all the energy of a real gentleman, a general outcry and an indiscriminate melee ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... midst of this melee one woman, whose eyes and facial contour betrayed Chinese blood, but who was very comely and neat, pushed forward and pointing to the glittering center of attraction ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... envelope the king of dandies, before he had time to execute his ordinary manoeuvre of riding off to the left and becoming a spectator of their prowess. The cavalry resolved that his majesty should for once ride down at their head to the melee, and taste what fighting was like; and he, finding that the thing must be, though horribly vexed, made a merit of his necessity, and afterwards pretended that he liked it very much. Sometimes, in the darkness, in default of other misanthropic visions, the wickedness of this cavalry, their ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... comments upon the care the young gallant was taking of himself, when suddenly there was a cry from the spectators; for one of the cubs, escaping from the melee, ran full tilt towards Raoul, blind as it seemed with terror; and as it came within reach of his weapon, the sharp blade gleamed in the air, and the little creature gave one yell and rolled over in its death agony. But that cry seemed to pierce the heart of the mother wolf, ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... pull the ship down with live men on board? That would naturally mean a fight, and we have no mean weapons, what with disintegrator ray-projectors and explosive electro-bullets." Then, again, for some reason, there were Ganymedans on board. They would very likely be whiffed out in the melee. The ship might be destroyed also, and they evidently are very careful about getting the ship down intact. The little meteor holes can easily be plugged up, and the liner made as good as new. At least that ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... shield and the lance, which was heavy, stiff, and decorated, and about his waist he girt a sharp, bright, and flashing sword. Then he followed his brother and lord into the fight. The latter demeaned himself bravely in the melee for some time, breaking, splitting, and crushing shields, helmets and hauberks. No wood or steel protected the man whom he struck; he either wounded him or knocked him lifeless from the horse. Unassisted, he did so well that he discomfited all whom he ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... strength from the earth like Antaeus. The hushed stadium could hear the pants of the athletes as they locked closer, closer. Strength failing, the Spartan snatched at his enemy's throat; but the Athenian had his wrist gripped fast before the clasp could tighten, and in the melee Glaucon's other hand passed beneath Lycon's thigh. The two seemed deadlocked. For a moment they grinned face to face, almost close enough to bite each other's lips. But breath was too precious for curses. The Spartan flung his ponderous weight downward. A slip in the gliding ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... fastened upon the neck of one of the horses before the rider could defend himself, and the next moment horse and rider were floundering on the ground. To a man, the line broke to the rescue, while the horses of the two lady spectators were carried into the melee in the excitement. The dogs of war were loosed. Hell popped. The smoke of six hundred guns arose in clouds. There were wolves swimming the river and wolves trotting around amongst the horses, wounded and bewildered. Ropes swished ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... U-Thor. They were warriors of the palace, mostly; but two score leaped to defend U-Thor, and with ringing steel they fought at the foot of the steps to the throne of Manator where stood O-Tar, the jeddak, with drawn sword ready to take his part in the melee. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... rifles by his side, and sat looking at the distance with knitted brows. He had received some terrific bruises in the late melee, but was prepared to fight till he died. He had said but little through the day. He was not talkative. His courage was of a quiet order. He felt the solemnity of the occasion. It was a little different ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... proclaimed for this reason: Robert Byrne, son of a Limerick business man, had been imprisoned for political reasons. He fell ill from the effects of a hunger strike,[1] and was sent to the hospital in the Limerick workhouse. A "rescue party" was formed. In the melee that followed, Robert Byrne and a constable were killed. Then according to a military order, Limerick was proclaimed because of "the attack by armed men on police constables and the brutal murder of ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... their enemies, and began to rake the road with rifle fire; then, in obedience to the commands of their half-clad colonel, they charged. A moment and they were fighting hand to hand with their returning comrades. Spaniard clashed with Spaniard, and somewhere in the melee the six marauders ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... not work together for the promotion of harmony and good order. At St. James's Fair, held at Kelso on 5th August last, a Scotch butcher-boy quarrelled and fought with an Irish mugger. Scotch and Irish rallied round these champions of the two countries, and in the melee which ensued, a young Scotchman was unhappily and barbarously killed. The Kelso crowd, in very natural rage, burned the muggers' camp, threw their carts into the Tweed, and drove them from the neighbourhood of the town. But there remained the resident ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... rest. Sometimes his eyes were filled with dust and smoke and then again they would clear. He heard the voices of officers shouting to both cavalry and infantry to charge, and then there was a confused and terrible melee. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tackle, for Lehigh's own sturdy right end came forward with the ball. Dick and Greg both dashed furiously at him, but Greg was hurled aside by Lehigh's interference. Dick, however, held Lehigh's right end dragged the Army man for a yard; then others joined in the melee, and ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... but night had fallen before Gary found where the liquor was hidden. He promptly broke the demijohn, and was knocked down thereupon by one of the drunken sailors. This led to a general melee on the quarter ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... disengaging from the general embrace, when all had subsided into different seats, and Aunt Jane, who had appeared from somewhere in her little round sealskin hat, had begun to pour out the tea. The first sentence that emerged from the melee of ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... show you the difficulty of their situation? "Hurried", "crowding", "crushing", "steep and narrow gorge", "suppressed voices", "fitful glancing of torches", "anxiously shielded", "melee", "struggle onward". ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... this time with increased bitterness. In the melee some few blows were exchanged, but it must be admitted that one side was about as much to blame for this as the other. Three additional neckties were captured, making fourteen in all. As thirty-seven freshmen ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... Fighting in the air has become so inseparable from the military operations of to-day that it occurs with startling frequency. A contest between hostile aeroplanes, hundreds of feet above the earth, is no longer regarded as a dramatic, thrilling spectacle: it has become as matter-of-fact as a bayonet melee between opposed forces ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... and misty rain the figure of one horseman slowly grew familiar. She caught fleeting glimpses of him, as he darted into a melee, as he spurred round to find a hotter field. Suddenly her eyes widened, and she pressed a hand hard ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... a new factor that had got to short-circuit that end, and Prickles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically that time. He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the melee like—well, like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... they ceased and listened to the sounds which came from the forest, wherein the efforts were pushed to make prisoner the young Shawanoe, who was dodging hither and thither as if running a gauntlet. The temptation was strong to mingle in the general melee, as it may be called, but the treatment Lone Bear had received at the hands of the Shawanoe filled him with a fear that he had never known before, for there was a tinge of superstition in it, as appeared in the next remark ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... a melee on the floor, furious, savage, mad. In cold fact, it lasted merely for seconds; but Chris was grappling with a man whose strength was as desperate as his own, and who had not been weakened by a solar plexus blow or a ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... Sohlberg and the butler, who had entered. "Get her out of here quick! My wife has gone crazy. Get her out of here, I tell you! This woman doesn't know what she's doing. Take her out and get a doctor. What sort of a hell's melee is this, anyway?" ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... sainte Eglise se croit investie du droit absolu d'enseigner les hommes; elle se croit depositaire de la verite, non pas de la verite fragmentaire, incomplete, melee de certitude et d'hesitation, mais de la verite totale, complete, au point de vue religieux. Bien plus, elle est si sure de l'infaillibilite que son Fondateur divin lui a communiquee, comme la dot magnifique de ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... came in the ranks of the opposing force, through which they drove like a living wedge. Then with fierce yells of execration the enemy rallied and the next moment Craven found himself in the midst of a confused melee where friends and foes were almost indistinguishable. The thundering of horses' hoofs, the raucous shouting of the Arabs, the rattle of musketry, combined in deafening uproar. The air was dense with clouds of sand and smoke, heavy with the reek of powder. He ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... sword and shooting with the rest. Sometimes his eyes were filled with dust and smoke and then again they would clear. He heard the voices of officers shouting to both cavalry and infantry to charge, and then there was a confused and terrible melee. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... third, who seemed to be trying to break out. There were the sounds of a struggle; then muttered curses; then the quick, sharp report of a pistol. There was an exclamation of pain and more oaths; knives flashed in the air; others rushed pell-mell into the melee; and then the force of numbers seemed to triumph, and the crowd came, dragging a man forward to where I stood. His face was pale as death; the blood, streamed from a flesh wound on his forehead; an expression of dreadful terror glared out of his eyes; he gasped and looked from right to left. The ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... of loungers around broke forth into cheers, and Job's eyes, usually so blue, flashed fire. He sprang from Bess' back, and, in an instant, had struck the bully a blow that sent him reeling back into the arms of Yankee Sam. A moment, and a general melee seemed imminent, when Dan Dean stepped up and called a halt. He was the smoothest, most affable, meanest fellow in town, nephew by marriage to the lord of Pine Tree Mountain, and, as he had always boasted, the ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... got our crew, and in addition we find that the Fates have thrown in a hundred or more women to act as ballast. Now I, for one, do not fear a woman. We can set them to work. There is plenty for them to do keeping things tidy; and if we get into a very hard fight, and come out of the melee somewhat the worse for wear, it will be a blessing to have 'em along to mend our togas, sew buttons on our uniforms, and ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... fate decreed, it would be his death. His respect for his fellows was measured by their power of withstanding him, and the man he had the greatest affection for, perhaps, was a soldier, now incapacitated, who had once in a melee succeeded in knocking him from his saddle. At the same time he believed in his own astuteness, not without some reason be it said, and in the back of his mind there was always a certain admiration for the man who could get the better of him. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... endeavored to avoid the contagion of the pest-ridden sick. To them Roland gave his horse from preference. Three fell dead from the saddle; he mounted his horse after them, and reached Cairo safe and sound. At Aboukir he flung himself into the melee, reached the Pasha by forcing his way through the guard of blacks who surrounded him; seized him by the beard and received the fire of his two pistols. One burned the wadding only, the other ball passed under his arm, killing a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... sent him sprawling to earth. His quick temper flashed into a flame, and he leaped up with doubled fists and made for the offender, who coolly awaited him. A warning cry from George recalled his brother to his senses, and, instead of attacking his assailant, he laughingly plunged into the melee, which went on ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... was no more. Racked by contending emotions, we had almost forgotten our imminent peril; as we turned to confront the foe, we saw that our hesitation had been fatal; the red warriors were upon us like a living tide, and for a few seconds a wild melee followed; we battled hand to hand with the desperation of fiends; it was but for an instant; my brave brother fell covered with wounds, and his death shriek was still ringing in my ears, when I received a blow upon the head ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... and each trying to flank the rear of the other, will eventually circle around a common center; and if the effort to improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will narrow until the battle becomes a melee. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... De Croix swearing in French beside me, and glanced around through the mad turmoil to see him cutting and hacking with broken blade, pushing into the midst of the melee as if he had real joy in the encounter. While I thus had him in view, a knife whistled through the air, there was a quick dazzle in the sunlight, and he reeled backward off his horse and disappeared in ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Thompson's mouth in turn, and fired twice, completing the work Simms had begun. The giant Coy hurled his bulk into the struggling mass now crowded into the corner of the room, and some say he held Ben Thompson's arms, though in the melee it was hard to tell what happened. He called out to Simms, "Don't mind me," meaning that Simms should keep on firing. "Kill the —— of ——!" he cried. Coy no doubt was a factor in saving Simms' life, for one or the other of these two worst men in the Southwest would have ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... their leaders, followed with unslackened and dogged zeal. The Christians gave way—they were beaten back: Ferdinand spurred forward; and, ere either party were well aware of it, both kings met in the same melee: all order and discipline, for the moment, lost, general and monarch were, as common soldiers, fighting hand to hand. It was then that Ferdinand, after bearing down before his lance Naim Reduon, second only to Muza in the songs of Granada, beheld opposed to him a strange form, that seemed to that ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... life of a fellow—creature was at stake. So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of the fence, with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Spaniard following with a large brown wax candle, that burned like a torch; and looking down on the melee below, there Sneezer lay with the throat of the leopard in his jaws, evidently much exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel shake now and then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the brute with his bare hands. As for the poor pigs, they were all huddled together, squeaking and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... unused to the ways of the sea, the next half-hour was a bewildering melee of hurrying, sweating toil, with low-spoken orders and half-caught oaths and the glimmer of a dying fire over all the scene. He was rowed to the sloop with the first boatload and there Job Howland set him to work passing water-kegs into the hold. He had had no rest in over twenty ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... even speak, but at last regained sufficient composure to tell them how the thing must have swooped silently upon him from above and behind as the first premonition of danger he had received was when the long, clawlike fingers had clutched him beneath either arm. In the melee his rifle had been discharged and he had broken away at the same instant and turned to defend himself with the butt. The rest they ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... yet another matter we have to settle. You attacked me on horseback, and tried to murder me in order to abduct two ladies that night over in Billingsgate. That you cannot deny. I watched you follow the ladies from Bridewell to Grouche's, and saw your face when your mask fell off during the melee as plainly as I see it now. If other proof is wanting, there is that sprained knee upon which your horse fell, causing you to limp even yet. I am sure now that my lord will meet me like a man; or would he prefer that I should go to the king and tell him and the world the whole ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... night assault made me ponder. Daylight discovered the bodies of three dead men, rustlers, who had been killed, the report went out, by random shots. Other participants in the affair had been wounded. I believed Morton and his men, under cover of the darkness and in the melee, had sent in some shots ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... of this melee, reporters from the Kansas City papers were sent to cover the story of the proceedings ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... contempt, but with full knowledge of your superiority with weapons—of the many of mine who must go down before you. And that you may not be under restraint of conscience or arm-tied in the melee, I not only conclude your mission, but release you from ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... sir," said I, whipping old Rene smartly. And in another minute we were thumping and bumping over great paving-stones, too noisily for conversation to be carried on, and getting into a melee of carts, wagons, and horsemen, all bound for Beaucaire. The women were now in great delight, looking from side to side, commenting on the dress of one, the equipage of another, nodding to acquaintance, and crying "O, look!" to each other, ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... Dashing on ahead he plunged into the melee, frightening the gulls from their find so that they flew shrieking into the air as the girl and her little companion ran up to discover the remains of a large fish on the sand. It was a halibut nearly six feet long. With the exception of the bones but a small portion and the head ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... man was seized with a sudden panic of fear that the little force of one hundred men was about to be attacked and overcome by mere force of numbers while off their guard, lost his head, and began to use his sword; the others, seeing their comrade fighting, rushed into the melee and before reason could get the upper hand, the mischief was done. The natural consequence of this unprovoked massacre was a general flight of the Indians from their towns, all who could, taking refuge ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... their advantage, using their rams to sink an adversary or disable her by cutting away her oars. Where the melee was too close for such tactics they tried to take their enemy by boarding. On every Greek trireme was a specially organized boarding party consisting of 36 men—18 marines, 14 heavily armed soldiers, and four bowmen; and the Greeks seem to have been ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... now disordered French, who could not move to cope with their unarmoured assailants, and were slaughtered or taken prisoners to a man. The second line of the French came on, only to be engulfed in the melee; its leaders, like those of the first line, were killed or taken, and the commanders of the third sought and found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to safety. The closing scene of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... come out of that melee of flying hoofs and prodding horns without being at least seriously injured was more than he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... helplessness induced by some vast clashing of the elements. It seems so outside one's jurisdiction. One is oppressed with a sense of the futility of interference. And this was no ordinary dog fight. It was a stunning melee, which would have excited favourable comment even among the blase residents of a negro quarter or the not easily-pleased critics of a Lancashire mining-village. From all over the beach dogs of every size, breed, and colour were racing to the scene: and while some of these merely remained in the ringside ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... respect it exactly resembled a butcher's pole-axe. It was with this punch end, as we afterwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually struck when fighting, driving a neat round hole in his adversary's skull, and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or sometimes in a melee. I think he considered the punch a neater and more sportsmanlike tool, and it was from his habit of pecking at his enemy with it that he got his name of 'Woodpecker'. Certainly in his hands it ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... Pud, sitting down on a cot and wiping off the sweat with a pajama top that had gotten separated from its master during the melee. ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... expanded into a riot of ribbons and flounces and all decorative things, Mrs. Hanway-Harley, attracted by a bustle dear to the feminine heart, was drawn more and more from out her shell of martyrdom until finally she stood in the fore-front of the melee, giving directions. She never omitted, however, to maintain a melancholy, and comported herself at all times as should a mother who only bows to the dread inevitable and but dresses her child ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... remain silent for the space of three minutes, and is then to retort and bring up six instances. He is to call the present members to witness, and all are to take one side or the other, so that none be neutral, and the melee will doubtless become general, and we expect that much beautiful latent abusive talent will be developed in this way. But let all this be done with an air of great politeness, sincerity, and goodwill, at least at the commencement, ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... was whipped forth and a terrible fight ensued, every man taking part in the general melee. The girls, trembling with fear as shots and curses rang out profusely, clung to each other helplessly, but failed to note that the guns ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... bravely through any game of battle or tourney such as the King loved to organize when he had his knights round him. It was often that the esquires as well as the knights competed in these contests of skill and strength, or followed their masters into some great melee, and it was a point of honour with the latter that their followers should be well and suitably ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... started down the steep avenue toward the harbor. Halfway down he glanced back and saw that nobody as yet was paying any attention to them. Nor was there anybody on the street to bother them, though the pavement was strewn with Skins and bodies. Apparently, those who'd lived through the first savage melee ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... it was no use. The dear ladies were captured again, and many of us got severe wounds. But the feeling was strong, I can tell you, among the sailors when the news spread through the town, for some of the women got hurt, too, in the melee, and I think we could get five hundred men together to ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... remarkably accurate kick under the official coat-tails, picked the deputy up bodily and hurled him in a heap in the same corner where T. Morgan Carey sprawled, blinking (for his glasses had been shaken off in the melee) and weeping with fear ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... of Folais,[136] When he to fight must challenge thee; Nor better fared the Roses[137] That lent Monro their valiancy. The Granndach[138] and the Frazer,[139] They tarried not the melee in; Fled Forbes,[140] in dismay, sir, Culloden-wards, undallying. Away they ran, while firm remain, Not one to three, retiring so, The earl,[141] the craven, took to haven, Scarce a pistol firing, O! Mackay[142] of Spoils, his heart recoils, He cries ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... During the melee Butzow regained consciousness; his wound being as superficial as that of the American, the two men were soon donning their clothing, and, half-dressed, rushing toward ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... feather that fell; and Lance, swinging round, charged into the melee—seven reds now, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... took nine shots for him to dislodge the bears. Worse than that they all tumbled out of the tree—apparently unhurt. The hounds, of course, attacked them, and there arose a terrible uproar. Haught had to run down to save his dogs. Bill was going to shoot right into the melee, but Haught knocked the rifle up, and forbid him to use it. Then Bill ran into the thick of the fray to beat off the hounds. Haught became exceedingly busy himself, and finally disposed of two of the bears. Then hearing angry bawls and terrific ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... men. Who could fail to believe in a leader so cool and resourceful? He ran out into the darkness to discover the cause of the shooting. A number of sailors and firemen were striving to launch a boat. There was a struggle going on. He could not distinguish friend from foe in the melee, but he threw himself into ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... hate scenes—I, who have despised people for showing emotion—who have thought them wanting in self-control—I went down and must needs throw myself into the melee, like a romantic fool! Did I do any good? They would have gone away without me I dare say.' But this was over-leaping the rational conclusion,—as in an instant her well-poised judgment felt. 'No, perhaps they would not. I did some good. But what possessed me to defend ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... ground was renewed, by some evil-minded person, and the colored population, becoming roused to madness, they proceeded to wreak their vengeance on a company in Stinson's tavern, after which a general melee took place, in which several men were wounded, and it is likely some will die of the injuries received. The colored village is a ruin, and much more like a place having been beseiged by an enemy than any thing else. This is the reward which the colored men have received for their loyalty, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... he spoke no word of his occasional uneasiness, nor yet to the old man. Yet one of the very first matters he attended to was the overhauling of the revolvers, which had been rescued out of the melee of the battle and been given to the patriarch, who had kept them with a ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... "I am very glad to see you, Mr. Harkless, so extremely glad! And so delighted to find you looking strong again! Do tell me about all our friends in Plattville. I should like to have a little chat with you some time. So good of you to find me in this melee." ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... advantageous position for attack. From the heights above the city, with their terrifying war cries, and with the same furious onslaught which had overwhelmed Duke Leopold's glorious horsemen at Morgarten, they fell upon the nobles in a bloody melee in which horses, men and valets perished in a hopeless confusion. Three Gruyere knights were left lifeless on the battlefield and eighty-four others, who thus paid the price of their temerity in thinking to stem the already formidable confederation of citizens and free people ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... that has come down to us from George's school-days is honorable to him as a truth-telling boy. A difficulty arose among several boys in school, and it grew into a quarrel. Three or four of George's companions were engaged in the melee, and some hard blows were given back and forth. Other boys were much wrought upon by the trouble, and allowed their sympathies to draw them to the side of one party or the other. Thus the school was divided in opinion upon the question, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... return to his cabin, threaten his wife and children, rob him of his gun, and pass on to repeat their lawless deeds; menacing some, beating and shooting others; not always sparing women or children; the latter perhaps, being hurt accidentally in the melee. ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... universal melee, when the stones and arrows are raining on the combatants, and some furious hailstorm is the slightest illustration with which we should expect him to heighten the effect of the human tempest, so sure Homer is that he has painted the thing itself in its ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... squadrons. Still farther two bodies of Russian horse, each nearly equal in strength to the Italians, were seen. There was a movement among the Sardinian horse. They formed into two bodies and dashed at the Russians. There was a cloud of dust, swords could be seen flashing in the sun, a confused melee for a minute or two, and then the Russians broke and rode across the plain, pursued ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... him and tore away his shirt; we then saw that he had stabbed himself to the heart with his great knife. "Ho! ho!" cried Madoc, with a sinister smile, "our Dean has cheated the gallows. You others stay here while I go and notify the bailiff." He picked up his hat, that had fallen off during the melee, and left without another word. I remained opposite the ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... no rules of the road. Omnibuses careered along, every window rattling loudly; drays creaked and strained; non-descript delivery wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses; horsemen picked their way amid the melee. The din was described as something extraordinary—hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from the sidewalk the blare and bray of brass bands before the various auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions. Cigar boys, a peculiar product of the time, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... being in flight and hotly pursued, Henry with a handful of horsemen (he had but thirty at his back when he came out of the melee) charged upon the Walloons and Swiss, who instantly broke and fled, with such impetuous haste that they left their ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... and impatient, suddenly called the soldiers back to their ranks beside Master Carfax. Robin spied this worthy now; and saw that he bestrode a black horse clumsily—as if armored indeed. Simeon evidently had withdrawn his men from a melee for fear that in it he might not be properly protected. He was seen to be issuing orders very ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... sliding of feet and brushing of gowns—filled the hall—ominous to Lane's over-sensitive faculties, swelling unnaturally, the expression of unrestrained physical abandon. Lane walked along the edge of this circling, wrestling melee, down to the corner where the orchestra held forth. They seemed actuated by the same frenzy which possessed the dancers. The piccolo player lay on his back on top of the piano, piping his shrill notes at the ceiling. And Lane made sure this player was drunk. On the moment then the jazz came to ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... was known that the King had stricken out the melee, or pitched battle of the second day, when all comers gentle and simple were by ancient custom allowed to range themselves in two parties under the banners of the victorious knight and him who stood second, all were of one opinion, namely that ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... then, and a fine kick followed and was caught by Still on his forty-five. With good interference he secured five before he was thrown. Brimfield, still working fast, reached the opponent's thirty-five before a punt was again necessary. This time Innes passed low and Freer kicked into the melee and the pigskin danced and bobbed around for many doubtful moments before Marvin snuggled it under him on the Morgan's forty-three yards. From there a forward went to Still and gained seven, and, playing desperately, the Brimfield backs ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ensued was a desperate, and almost indiscriminate melee. The attacking party had been so sure of taking the people by surprise, that they formed no plan of attack; but simply arranged that, at a given signal from their chief, a united rush should be made upon the church, and a general massacre ensue. As we have ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... detective service to know of it and to take what steps they could to insure his safety. I am told that what actually happened was that on one occasion his Royal Highness went to the aid of the police, hard pressed by a gang of rioters; and he was injured in the general melee. It all took place in a moment and of course no one had any idea that he would involve himself in it. When he was picked up by the detectives he gave a certain address." Here the Comptroller assumed an air of the utmost discretion. "To that address he was taken; ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... presented, the dancers vaulting actively over each other's heads. Other variations succeeded, not necessary to be specified—and the sport concluded by a general clashing of swords, intended to represent a melee. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hostilities recommenced, victory remaining with the commons, who had the advantage in numbers and position, the women also valiantly assisting them, pelting with tiles from the houses, and supporting the melee with a fortitude beyond their sex. Towards dusk, the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, fired the houses round the marketplace and the lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance; sparing neither their own, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... are Carl Heft, surely! Good lad, I did not see you in the melee, but I have no doubt you acquitted yourself well. I also am going to the front trench, to our company's sector. We will ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... equipped, and mounted; and each was entitled to allowance for a squire, a valet, a page; and two yeomen, one of whom was termed coutelier, from the large knife which he wore to dispatch those whom in the melee his master had thrown to the ground. With these followers, and a corresponding equipage, an Archer of the Scottish Guard was a person of quality and importance; and vacancies being generally filled ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... tactics of society are infinitely more numerous and infinitely finer than those of strategy. Woe betide the rash knight who dashes into the thick of the polished melee without some slight experience of his barb and his lance! Let him look to his arms! He will do well not to appear before his helm be plumed with some reputation, however slight. He may be very rich, or even very poor. We have seen that answer ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... and give your miserable carcass to the dogs," suiting the action to the word, and groping under his cloak for the hilt of his sword.—A crowd collected, and the Yorkshireman perceiving symptoms of a scene, slunk out of the melee, and Mr. Jorrocks, after an indignant shake or two of his feathers and curl of his mustachios, pursued ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... guilds. Here a long struggle took place. It was terminated for a time by the cavalry of Vargas, who, arriving through the streets of Saint Joris, accompanied by the traitor Van Ende, charged decisively into the melee. The masses were broken, but multitudes of armed men found refuge in the buildings, and every house became a fortress. From every window and balcony a hot fire was poured into the square, as, pent in a corner, the burghers stood at last at bay. It was difficult to carry the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... contrived to envelope the king of dandies, before he had time to execute his ordinary manoeuvre of riding off to the left and becoming a spectator of their prowess. The cavalry resolved that his majesty should for once ride down at their head to the melee, and taste what fighting was like; and he, finding that the thing must be, though horribly vexed, made a merit of his necessity, and afterwards pretended that he liked it very much. Sometimes, in the darkness, in default of other misanthropic visions, the wickedness of this cavalry, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... more formidable as an opponent because he could be angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulay writes to Mr. Napier in February 1831: "People here think that I have ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... her own deeds of that day, as more allied to feats of melee and battle, than any which her young lady ever acted; but she was in an agony of inexpressible terror, expecting, from the knight's account of the petard, some dreadful catastrophe, of what nature she did not justly ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... was thrown over in this strange melee; the room was plunged in darkness. The two men upon the floor lay struggling together in a terrible silence, only broken by Tom's fierce snarlings, that seemed scarce human. So terrified were the remaining two men, that they could do nothing for the assistance of their master; ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there. The canvas seemed to me immense. Politicians and preachers, workers and capitalists, artists and philistines, "good" women and prostitutes, soldiers and conscientious objectors jostled one another in the melee. Bloomsbury, Westminster, Chelsea and Mayfair each had its appointed place, while race-courses and night-clubs alternated with mining villages and methodist chapels. But, unlike Delancey's other stories, the soldiers had no V.C.'s and the workers didn't ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... of that very commission for which he had toiled throughout a life of hardship and danger. Until now Wilder had made good his quarter of the deck though pressed by a band as fierce and daring as his own; but, at this fearful crisis in the combat, a voice was heard in the melee, that thrilled on all his nerves, and seemed even to carry its fearful influence over the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... literature. And one prerequisite I have felt it unnecessary to dwell upon. Unless its intent is honest, and its editors independent of influence from any self-interested source, the literary tournament of criticism becomes either a parade of the virtues with banners for the favorites, or a melee where rivals seek revenge. Venal criticism is the drug and dishonest criticism ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... up to the main saloon and joined the melee there, and after one dance with Verna—all he could claim in that crowd of men—Crowninshield turned ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... threatened disaster to their occupants. Nevertheless, Madame la voituriere, who, Stanhope explains, was not only dressed up to enact the part she had undertaken, but was "not of the mildest or most peaceable temper," forced a way through the melee with such success that, in due course, she deposited her travellers in safety at Brussels whither they were bound; when, to their extreme amusement, her task accomplished, she speedily "transformed herself into ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... the bulky form of Garsett, and the thin American, in a tangled, writhing mass. His friend Cathro was looking on with open mouth and trembling hands, ineffectual, inactive. But Scarlett, making a sudden rush into the melee, seized the lucky digger, and dragged him, infuriated, struggling, swearing, from the unwieldy Garsett, on whose throat his ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... forlorn hope, so few men had she with her. The little party were repulsed, and at one moment her squire, d'Aulon, saw that his brave mistress was fighting alone, surrounded by the English. At great peril she was rescued from the melee. Asked how she could hope to succeed in taking the place with hardly any support, she answered, while she raised her helmet, 'There are fifty thousand of my host around me,' alluding to the vision of angels that in moments of extreme peril she relied on. D'Aulon ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... by the hand, with a gesture of surprise and impatience which struck Newman, intent as he was upon his own words, with its dramatic effectiveness. "If Mr. Newman is going to make a scene in public," she exclaimed, "I will take my poor child out of the melee. She is too young to see such naughtiness!" and she instantly ...
— The American • Henry James
... effectually that the barbed point projected out at my back. I had received the wound a moment before the discharge of the carronades, and had been scarcely conscious of the hurt at the moment; but a man cannot plunge into the thick of a melee with an arrow through his shoulder and not know something about it, sooner or later; and the hurt had quickly become very painful and inflamed. The doctor declared that mine was the worst case of all, and insisted that I should for that reason be the first ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... which he was riding, and which was hewing its way through a mass of Dutch. He called on them to halt and reform, and their officers supposing him to be one of their generals who had arrived from headquarters, set to work to extricate their men from the melee. The Prince passed with the utmost coolness through their line as if to see what was doing in front, while Claverhouse and Collier followed him as if they were attached. As soon as he had got to the open space in front, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... begun to sink beneath the horizon; it was the hour in which the Limanian aristocracy went in its turn to the Amancaes; the richest toilets shone in the equipages which defiled to the right and left beneath the trees along the road; there was an inextricable melee of foot-passengers, carriages, horses; a confusion of cries, ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... ensued that defies description. M'Lellan would have brought his rifle into play and settled all old and new grudges by a pull of the trigger, had he not been restrained by Mr. Hunt. That gentleman acted as moderator, endeavoring to prevent a general melee; in the midst of the brawl, however, an expression was made use of by Lisa derogatory to his own honor. In an instant the tranquil spirit of Mr. Hunt was in a flame. He now became as eager for the fight as any one on the ground, and challenged Lisa to settle the dispute on the spot ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... cried Allen, catching hold of Jock's ear so as to end his war-dance in a howl, bringing the ponderous Rob to the rescue, and there was a general melee, ending by all the five rolling promiscuously on the gravel drive. They scrambled up with recovered tempers, and at the sight of an indignant housemaid rushed in a general stampede to the two large attics opening into one another, which served as the lair of the Folly lads. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and bawling, the beast, standing fully erect, struck again and again at his victim, who threw his arms across his face to save it from being torn to pieces. Fearful blows from the bear's claw-shod paws rained upon Mr. C.'s head, and his scalp was almost torn away. In the melee he fell, and the bear pounced upon him, to ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... you the difficulty of their situation? "Hurried", "crowding", "crushing", "steep and narrow gorge", "suppressed voices", "fitful glancing of torches", "anxiously shielded", "melee", "struggle onward". ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... horsemen, and are very fond of equestrian sports. Some of their fancy riding is very clever, and great rivalry exists among them, particularly in their "jerid," or javelin, play, when frequently several hundreds of mounted men are engaged in a melee, which, though only intended to be a friendly contest, often results in serious injury or ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... new. It was in this fashion that America was divided between the powers of Europe and the aborigines were dispossessed of their country. The barbaric rule of might from which the paleface had fled hither for refuge caught up with him again, and in the melee the ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... Frank's ear with snow. Tom and Fred got into a regular war at close quarters, and in the end Tom threw his opponent flat and stuffed snow down his neck. But then Larry came up with a huge cake of snow and nearly smothered Tom, and then a dozen leaped in, and a good-natured melee resulted, lasting for ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... by his friends; a handsome young man in knee-breeches and a cocked hat watched the proceedings cynically in the right-hand corner, whilst on the left a big fat man frantically endeavoured to recover his wig, that had been lost in the melee. The advertisement was headed, 'Morton and Cox's Operatic Company,' and concluded with the announcement that Madame Angot would be played at the Queen's Theatre. After a few moments spent ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... like some unwieldy prehistoric reptile. Houck knew that if he lost his footing he was done for. Once, as the cluster of fighters swung downhill, the outlaw found himself close to the edge of the group. He got his arms free and tried to beat off those clinging to him. Out of the melee he staggered, a pair of arms locked tightly round his thighs. Before he could free himself another body flung itself at his shoulder and hurled him from ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... barriers. Miguel gets a frightful trampling. Who cares for gates or doors? They tear the beasts' houses bar from bar, and, laying hold of the gaunt buffalo, drag him forth by feet, ears, and tail; and in the midst of the melee, still head and shoulders above all, wilder, with the cup of the wicked, than any beast, is the man of ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... dame's invitation, and the two were presently engaged in a melee of gossip over the sayings and doings of fashionable society ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... old and tottering, and Chinese, Burmese, Shans, Kachins, Karens, and people of Asia that I could not place, all kneeling, sitting, and bowing in the warm glow of light that comes from the great golden Buddha behind the gates. Amongst them were golden and red lacquered boxes and bowls and a melee of effects and things, that suggested a curiosity shop, yet withal a bigness in the golden arches and a simplicity of worship that was simply grand. Ghost of Rembrandt!—could you have but seen this and depicted it in your most reverend and inspired moment! Or Rubens—he would have caught ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... any face that is open-eyed and immovable, the very sign of a boy! He stalks about with his hands in his breeches pockets, like a piece of machinery; sits leisurely down when he ought to field, and never gets farther in batting than to stop the ball. His is the only voice never heard in the melee: I doubt, indeed, if he have one, which may be partly the reason of a circumstance that I record to his honour, his fidelity to Jem Eusden, to whom he has adhered through every change of fortune, with a tenacity proceeding perhaps from an ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... Sir Neil. And now the robber knights were certain that these were but timid men. So out came their swords as they rode at the two. But they found them ready and watchful. And though the odds were two to one, it was not hard matter to hold the robbers off until Sir Launcelot came charging into the melee. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... was Diderot, of whom Rousseau said, "A la distance de quelques siecles du moment ou il a vecu, Diderot paraitra un homme prodigieux; on regardera de loin cette tete universelle avec une admiration melee d'etonnement, comme nous regardons aujourd'hui la tete des Platon et des Aristote." [15:20] All his contemporaries agreed that nothing was so charged with divine fire as the conversation of Diderot. Gautherin, in his fine bronze of him on the Place Saint-Germain-des-Pres, ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... Hungarian officer, with its noble dedication "To Friend and Foe." Here are some of the French books—books in which the clear, passionate intellect of that race, with its savage irony, burns like a flame. Romain Rolland's Au-Dessus de la Melee, written in exile in Switzerland; Barbusse's terrible Le Feu; Duhamel's bitter Civilization; Bourget's strangely fascinating novel The Meaning of Death. And the noble books that have come out of England: ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... mean?" Turnbull asked at the same moment, and Brenda got up from her chair and tried to address some explanation to her lover through the ominous preparatory snarlings of the melee. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... gardes de chasse, who, having commenced tavern-keeper in the Fauxbourg St Antoine some years back, and being a thriving man, had become a 'personage' in his section, and was now a captain in the Federes. Forced, malgre, to join the march to the Hotel de Ville, he had seen me in the melee, and dragged me from under a heap of killed and wounded. To his recollection I probably owed my life; for the patriots mingled plunder with their principles, stripped all the fallen, and the pike and dagger finished the career of many of the wounded. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... his lip, with a telescope at his eye, while he watched the conflict in which he could scarce distinguish friend from foe. He could see Blackbeard charge aft to rally his men and then whirl back to lunge into the melee where towered Colonel Stuart's tall figure. The powder smoke from pistols and muskets drifted in a thin blue haze. Joe Hawkridge was fairly shaking with nervousness as he ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... one knew. They had observed him on deck standing close to his brother midshipman, but after that, no one could give an account of him. Denham began to be greatly alarmed, fearing that the young lord had been thrown overboard, or that he might in the melee have fallen down below; but at that moment he was unable to make any further inquiries; for, as the mouth of the harbour was approached, the forts on either side opened their fire on the prize. Although the brig offered a better mark than the boats would ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... urchins wanted, and they gathered about the three; pushed against Odysseus-Fritz, Achilles-Franz and Patroclus-Paul, and as no policeman was near, they would have mastered the three peaceable, well-bred boys, but at that moment Pixy, who had been watching the game, sprang in the midst of the melee, grasped the sleeve of one of the boys, snarling savagely, as if he were a terribly dangerous dog, indeed. The frightened boy tore himself loose with such force that he fell to the ground and Pixy, as though ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... other ran toward the hotel of M. de Treville, crying, "To the rescue, Musketeers! To the rescue!" As usual, this hotel was full of soldiers of this company, who hastened to the succor of their comrades. The MELEE became general, but strength was on the side of the Musketeers. The cardinal's Guards and M. de la Tremouille's people retreated into the hotel, the doors of which they closed just in time to prevent their enemies from entering with them. As to the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Stoutenburgh deferred her disguising till she should need it, being in the first place to be the catcher, not the caught. Mr. Linden on his part chose to rely on his own resources for safety, but two or three of the boys tied on shawls and scarfs—soon discarded in the melee. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... dreaming, I suppose, that there were any Union soldiers near. The Confederates were surprised to find our cavalry had possession of the trains. However, they were desperate and at once assaulted, hoping to recover them. In the melee that ensued they succeeded in burning one of the trains, but not in getting anything from it. Custer then ordered the other trains run back on the road towards Farmville, and ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... at their opponent, determined to regain their money by violence. The move was not unexpected, nor was he unprepared. He fought as he had played, and so won the sympathies of the bystanders that in an instant there was a general melee in which he was helped to escape ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... firelight from below and made straight for it. But alas! the arch was narrower than he thought, and dog and man went rolling and tumbling down the staircase, bumping and bounding from stair to stair, a wild melee of doeskin legs and shaggy paws and clanging sword and wildly brandished arms, making vain clutches at the air to ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... of ambrosial blood called ichor, which the prick of a javelin or spear would cause to flow freely. Even Ares, the genius of homicide and slaughter, was on one occasion at least wounded by a mortal antagonist, and sent out of the melee badly punished, so that he bellowed like a bull-calf, as he mounted on a dusty whirlwind to Olympus. Over his misadventures while playing his own favorite game certainly there were no tears to be shed; but when, prompted by motherly tenderness, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... them when the chance afforded. These natives attempted to separate the pair and drag the girl to their huts. The friar attacked them with spirit, but the brown men were too many for him, and in the melee both ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... from the commander's weapon, and he didn't bother to replace it. As Hernan and his men charged into the melee with their carriers, the ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... down in my little hideout; as soon as the shooting started in earnest, they were going to clean out this woods but good. It was going to be a fine barrage, with guns going off in all directions, because it is hard to keep your head in a melee. Esper and telepathy go by the ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Bannister eleven a few yards from Ballard's goal-line, and the touchdown that would give the Gold and Green that supreme glory. One minute to play; Deacon Radford had given Butch the pigskin, and like a berserker, he fought entirely through the scrimmage. But a kick on the head had blinded him, in the melee—free of tacklers, with the goal-line, victory, and the Championship so near, he staggered, reeled blindly, crashed into an upright, and toppled backward, senseless on the field, while the Referee's ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... was conducted on the French side by the marshals in consultation with Eugene and Poniatowski. The rear-guard was momentarily severed from the line, but these two generals wheeled and fiercely attacked the advancing Russians, engaging all within reach until Davout was able to evade the melee and rejoin the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... sight of these persons threw me, of course, on the alert. I grasped the butt of my gaff-stick,—an excellent weapon, about the length and weight of a policeman's staff,—and braced up my nerves for the melee. But when we stood face to face, all idea that they would venture to begin the fray vanished. Though they were young men, in the prime of life, probably not more than five or six-and-twenty, I verily believe, that with the weapons which nature has given me, I could have rendered them both incapable ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... mistake!" he said. "They timed it almost to the minute. We had sort of beaten them back for the time bein'. Mr. Meredith had woke up sudden, as I told you, and came into the thick of the melee, as we say in the service. Then we heard the firin' in the distance and the 'splat' of Mr. Oscard's Express rifle. I just turns, like this 'ere, my head over me shoulder, quite confidential, and I says, 'Good Lord, I thank yer.' I'm no hand at tracts and Bible-readin's, ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Russell, a brother of the one whose pipe had been shot out of his mouth, opened fire on John and wounded him in the arm. Thomp. McDaniels shot Capt. Nichols, and in the melee McMahon was shot, as far as I have ever been able to ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... crowd, Where stream the colours flying, and frown the features grim, Of your emblem lion with his staunch and crimson[126] limb. Up, up, be bold, quick be unrolled, the gathering of your levy,[127] Let every step bound forth a leap, and every hand be heavy; The furnace of the melee where burn your swords the best, Eschew not, to the rally where blaze your streamers, haste! That silken sheet, by death strokes fleet, and strong defenders manned,— Dismays the flutter of its leaves the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to prevent the mischief that might happen at these martial exercises few were exhibited in which a great number were not wounded, some killed in the melee, others crushed by the falling of the scaffolds, or trod to death by the horses. Kings, princes, and gallant knights from every part of Europe have perished at different times while attending or taking part in those mimic battles. Successive popes thundered ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Drusus's heart went with his friend that instant. He had never been in a battle, yet he realized that it was vastly more heroic to stand undaunted before this audience, than to walk into the bloodiest melee without a tremor. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... lads could feel their very hearts leaving them in the compress of friends and foes. They on the outskirts upheld the honour of their classes by squeezing into paper thickness the lungs of those of their fellows who formed the centre of the melee ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... in camp. It was big and wild-looking, and now reared and plunged to break away. Anson just got there in time, and then it took all his weight to pull the horse down. Not until the crashing, snorting, pounding melee had subsided and died away over the rim of the glen did Anson dare ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... thee, blithe spirit! (Shelley) Wilt thou be a blackleg? Nay. Soaring, sing above the melee, "Shorter hours and ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... of the outside passengers who had an umbrella raised it as a protection against the smoke and fire. They were found to be but a momentary protection, for I think in the first mile the last one went overboard, all having their covers burnt off from the frames, when a general melee took place among the deck passengers, each whipping his neighbour to put out the fire. They presented a very motley appearance on arriving at the first station." Here, "a short stop was made, and a successful experiment tried to remedy the unpleasant jerks. A plan was soon hit upon and ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... but full of sand, jumped crosswise into that melee, and with a flying leap literally hung himself about Rubble's neck. Big Dan, roaring like a bull at this unexpected and most unprofessional mode of warfare, placed his two hands upon Dillingham's hips and tried to force him away; failing in this, he ran straight forward ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... was a melee. The kid's open torch, stuck on his helmet, gave them light enough, until Gordon could switch on his own. Then the kid dropped behind him, fighting back-to-back. Here, in close quarters, the attackers were no longer using knives. One might be turned on its owner, and a slit ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... when we have to get into this melee or become the pariah dog among countries. I don't profess to any knowledge of international affairs, but any fool can see that our sham neutrality will be the most costly piece of political blundering ever perpetrated in history. Here we ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... themselves in front of the threatened pole and Seth Davis, the blacksmith, wielding a heavy sledge hammer, did valiant service, clearing a space around him with little difficulty. Joe Wegg, Arthur Weldon, Cox the detective, Lon Taft, Nick Thome and even little Skim Clark were all in the melee, fighting desperately for time to enable Thursday Smith to work his press, using whatever cudgels they had been able to pick up to keep the assailants from the pole. Slowly, however, they were forced back by superior numbers until finally one of the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... fonctionnaires. Le train arrivant de Geneve doit passer le Rapide entre Macon et Dijon. Il ne passera pas. Je retarderai le train omnibus arrivant de Marseilles. J'accelererai le train-luggage arrivant de Paris. Il y aura une melee de quatre trains, entrechoques, tordus, enlaces, faisant le pique-a-baque: et pendant cette melee j'egorgerai ce vieux mufe ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... there, the original cause of the falling out buried now in a host of new causes. Ian, caught in an eddy, turned to make way out of it. A peasant woman, there with a group from some rock village, received a chance buffet, so heavy that she cried out, staggered, then, pushed against in the melee, fell upon the earth. The raven crew threatened trampling. "Jesu Maria!" she cried, and tried to raise herself, but could not. Ian, very near her, took a step farther in and, stooping, lifted her. But now the ravens chose to fall foul of him. The woman was presently gone, and her peasant ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... illustration we have chosen a scene where the battle is at its height, and the melee is given with great vigour. These figures on the tapestry are coloured green and yellow (for there was evidently not much choice of colours), and the chain armour is left white. The woodcut is about a third of the size, and is, as nearly ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... Amedee was defeated at the start in this melee of conversation. Maurice also kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile under his golden moustache, and an attack of coughing soon disabled Gustave. Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn by turn, their volleys, the lawyer and the actor continued their cannonading. Arthur Papillon, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... missiles, and with tubes for projecting Greek fire to create smoke and set their opponent on fire. The main tactics of the time, however, consisted in grappling with the enemy and transforming the combat into a hand-to-hand melee. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... with rage, clawed, kicked and bit at soldier, sailor and civilian. A gaunt man, with a greasy bunch of hair under a bowler, waved dirty hands above the melee and shouted that he had ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... a Training School for Bus and Tube Travellers will, it is hoped, supply a long-felt want in the Metropolis. I understand that a month's course at the establishment will enable the feeblest of mortals to hold his own and more in the fearful melee that rages daily round train and vehicle. I have a prospectus before me as I write; here are some of its sub-heads: "The Strap-Hanger's Stranglehold," "Foot Frightfulness," "How to Enter a Bus Secretly," "The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... Gianettino pulls a string and has a sanction for the wholesale murder of his countrymen. Fiesco pulls another string and gets men and galleys ad libitum. We do not see an intelligible clash of great political ideas, but a wild melee, in the outcome of which we have no reason to be particularly interested. It is all as little tragic as a back-country vendetta, or a factional fight in the halls of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... complexion offered by an incipient Don Juan of five years, she insisted that all the spare pastry should be distributed among the juveniles. The division led to blows, and tears which had to be quenched with coppers; while into the melee broke a desolate cry from Joseph, announcing that his lever was a failure. The Prince strode off to the blacksmith's shop, forgetful that he held a teacup in one hand and an eclair in the other. With custard dropping onto the red-hot bar which ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... taken unawares by some who had no roguish black eyed lady-loves laughing behind them. There was no doubt in the matter now. Salina paid her penalty more than once, and with a degree of resignation that was really charming to behold. Once or twice she was seen in the midst of the melee, to cast quick glances toward uncle Nathan, who sat in his easy-chair laughing till the tears ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... scene before him, rendered more interesting by a clear moon, whose silver beams fell, in the silence of a night without a breath of wind, calmly on the slumbers of mortals destined to mix in the melee of dreadful war, perhaps on the morrow. As he stood gazing, irresolute whether to retire to rest or indulge longer in a train of thought not very suitable to a warrior who delighted in the spirit-stirring scenes of his profession, his eye was attracted by ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... spectacle of a crowd of women tossing about in the surf, but an impartial angel would admit that many of the costumes here are becoming, and that the effect of the red and yellow caps, making a color line in the flashing rollers, is charming. It is true that there are odd figures in the shifting melee—one solitary old gentleman, who had contrived to get his bathing-suit on hind-side before, wandered along the ocean margin like a lost Ulysses; and that fat woman and fat man were never intended for this sort of exhibition; but taken altogether, with its colors, and the silver flash of the breaking ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Byrne, son of a Limerick business man, had been imprisoned for political reasons. He fell ill from the effects of a hunger strike,[1] and was sent to the hospital in the Limerick workhouse. A "rescue party" was formed. In the melee that followed, Robert Byrne and a constable were killed. Then according to a military order, Limerick was proclaimed because of "the attack by armed men on police constables and the brutal murder of ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
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