"Ransom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the treasures, hurried down to the water, while the men in the canoe, as directed, paddled back to the boat. When the chief had got possession of them, he, like Pharaoh, hardened his heart, and refused to liberate his captives, insisting on having a further ransom. Adair was very much inclined to refuse, and shook his head to show that he would pay no more. On this the chief levelled his musket, with significant gesture's, showing that he intended to persist ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Throwing out a thin arm, he pointed towards town after town on the lake shores, now in the brilliance of sunset, now in the shadow of the northern slope—Gravedona, Varenna, Argegno—towns which had each of them given their sons to the Austrian bullet and the Austrian lash for the ransom of Italy. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... robes of Leo. It is also told that the apostles Peter and Paul appeared to Attila in his camp and threatened him with death if he should attack Rome. He did not go away, however, without getting a large sum of money as ransom. ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... visitors. Those who did violate our seclusion had to put up with the consequences. We had purchased liberty. Large liberties are the birthright of the English. We had acquired most of the small liberties, and the ransom paid was the abandonment of many things hitherto deemed to form an integral ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... fields in parties of fifties; and any company of travellers happening then to be passing by will be good-naturedly attacked with both scythes and shouts, pulled from their horses, and carried off in triumph. For their ransom they will have to give at least a sheep to help out the evening's supper, besides honey enough to make mead for the whole company. And with such a prospect of feasting before them the laborers will return ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... all order at defiance, who despise each human regulation, talk of law! Say, it is heartless, vindictive vengeance, if you will; but call it not by the sacred name of law.—I wander from my object! They have told me of this frightful scene, and I am come to offer ransom for the offenders. Name your price, and let it be worthy of the subject we redeem; a grateful parent shall freely give it all for ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... hopes are far beyond the reach of savage malignity. We have not 'laid up treasure where moth and rust can corrupt, or where thieves may break in and steal,' It may be that the morning shall bring means of parley, and haply, opportunity of ransom." ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... they get to Turkey, they find that as they travel inland people become progressively less helpful, until eventually they are captured by bandits, and a ransom is demanded. How do they get out of this? And is ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... is a subtraction of comfort and happiness, and you feel disgusted with the world, and impatient with many events that are transpiring in your history, and you are in the condition in which Job was when the words of my text accosted him: "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke and then a ransom can ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with how much more keenness the English feel the disclosures of my book than the Americans. I myself am blunted by use—by seeing, touching, handling the details. In dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in learning market prices of men, women, and children, I feel that I acquire ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... For a moment I thought that the revolution had begun. "'Busful of Bourgeoisie Kidnapped" would make a good head-line for the papers. Or perhaps it was merely a private enterprise. We were to be held for ransom in some deserted warehouse on the margin of the Thames, into which, if the money were not forthcoming, we should be dropped with a weight at the feet on some dark and lonely night.... Fortunately the conductor came up at this stage of the journey and said "Ennimorfairplees," whereupon I laid ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... memorable for splendour of genius and the promotion of letters. A proof of the esteem in which literary excellence was held is afforded by the conduct of the Sultan of Turkey, Mahomet II., who deemed a mere ode by Filelfo a sufficient ransom for that scholar's mother-in-law, Manfredina Doria, and her two daughters. Astronomers were treading for the first time in the right track after two thousand years, since the days of Pythagoras, as may be seen by the hypothesis of Domenico Maria, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... I'll accept the condition because I must. But I've warned you. I suppose I'd better ask at once what the ransom is." ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... the siege of Tunis, and later was taken prisoner by a Barbary corsair, and was kept in cruel captivity for five years at Algiers, It was customary with the Algerines to treat their prisoners according to their supposed rank and expected ransom. The avarice of the masters sometimes alleviated the lot of the Christian slaves; but, unfortunately for Cervantes, he was treated with extreme severity in order to compel him to obtain ransom from his friends, while he, the very soul of independence, tried to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... sheets of burning flame, and boiling waters beyond. The young knight Tristam discovered the white headland beyond Cape Bojador, named it Cape Blanco, and took home some Moors of high rank to the Prince. A large sum was offered for their ransom, so Gonsalves conveyed them back to Cape Blanco and coasted along to the south, discovering the island of Arguin of the Cape Verde group and reaching the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, reached by Hanno many centuries ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... of coin, and had intrusted something like the same amount to Felix. In the treasure chamber lay a mass of wealth now belonging to Aurelia, and the mere fact of this being under lock and key by no means secured it against the commander's greed. Marcian came forward, and hearing the talk of ransom, endeavoured to awe the Hun into moderation, but with less success than he had had at Cumae. So he led Basil aside, told him of the messenger sent to Cumae, as well as of the inventions by which Chorsoman had been beguiled, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... community of True Believers. Whereas with an offer like that in his hand he could send an embassy to Tengga who would see there at once the downfall of his purposes and the end of his hopes. At once! That moment! . . . Afterward the question of a ransom could be arranged with Daman in which he, Belarab, would mediate in the fullness of his recovered power, without a rival and in the sincerity of his heart. And then, if need be, he could put forth all his power against the chief of the sea-vagabonds who would, as a matter ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... I have already told you that, by conversing with you, I endanger my life. Little value as it has, I implore you to accept it as the ransom of your own." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... wonderful store of her personal magnetism brought her the love, respect and obedience of both the old and the young. They instinctively felt her power to make them wiser, better and happier. This was a well merited tribute of praise, worth a king's ransom in gold! ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the treasure up, but we would have to give him every cent of it in ransom for her. That was his plan, and in it lay the elements of success. For Blythe and Yeager, no more than I, would weigh gold ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... signifies will not pass away as to-day is to pass away. Wherefore, brethren, we exhort and beseech you by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ by Whom our sins are forgiven, by Him Who willed that His Blood should be our ransom, by Him Who has deigned that we who are not deserving to be called His slaves should yet be called His brethren—we beseech you that your entire aim, that which gives you your very name of "Christian," and by reason of which you bear His Name upon your foreheads ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... nowise sallow, but clear and bright: tall she was and of excellent fashion, but well-knit and well-measured rather than slender and wavering as the willow-bough. Her voice was sweet and soft, her words few, but exceeding dear to the listener. In short, she was a woman born to be the ransom of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... opinion of Don Julian that Don Rodrigo had intended taking the child to some remote Indian habitation in the mountains, and demanding a ransom for her. ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... sanction of that commanding charity proclaimed by prophets and enjoined by apostles, which all history recognizes and which the Constitution cannot impair. From time immemorial every government has undertaken to ransom its subjects from captivity,—and sometimes a whole people has felt its resources well bestowed in the ransom of its prince. Religion and humanity have both concurred in this duty, as more than usually sacred. "The ransom of captives ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Hessians. If such a troop of soldiers knew beforehand that the Electoral Prince was coming that way, they would certainly lie in wait for him and fall upon him, either for purposes of plunder or in order to carry him off and extort a high ransom for him. The Electoral Prince will not passively submit to capture, but will resist; a battle will ensue, and then it might easily happen that in the heat of conflict a dagger should pierce the Prince or a ball go through his head. Those Swedes and Hessians are wild, fierce soldiers, and the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... bright, and the grass is again fresh; while the faces of the gods, who run to meet their sister, look young and happy as before. Only the castle is still hidden by the shining silver river mist. The giants have come near. 'Is the ransom ready for us?' ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... first in the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos. In the Homeric version, Dionysos, in the guise of a fair youth with dark locks and purple mantle, appears by the seashore, when he is espied by Tyrrhenian pirates, who seize him and hale him on board their ship, hoping to obtain a rich ransom. But when they proceed to bind him the fetters fall from his limbs, whereupon the pilot, recognizing his divinity, vainly endeavors to dissuade his comrades from their purpose. Soon the ship flows with ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... Ransom, a black-haired, mischievous Wood Gatherer of the Camp Fire Girls, a member of the Manasquan Camp Fire, the Guardian of which was Miss Eleanor Mercer, or Wanaka, as she was known in the ceremonial camp fires that were held each month. The girls were staying with her at her father's farm, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... the propriety of their continued existence in the full enjoyment of their riches and the unlimited exercise of their power. Now they tremble before every insult;—call them pro-Germans, international financiers, or profiteers, and they will give you any ransom you choose to ask not to speak of them so harshly. They allow themselves to be ruined and altogether undone by their own instruments, governments of their own making, and a press of which they are the proprietors. ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... from Batavia's shore; The thrifty Fleming for my beauty rare Pays a king's ransom, when that I am fair, And tall, and straight, and pure my ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... afraid of the native blacks," said the girl, "as I am of Usanga and his people. He and his men were all attached to a German native regiment. They brought me along with them when they deserted, either with the intention of holding me ransom or selling me into the harem of one of the black sultans of the north. Usanga is much more to be feared than Numabo for he has had the advantage of European military training and is armed with more or ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mind she felt as if the five francs were a kind of daily ransom which she paid the estimable concierge's wife for her good-will. It is true, that, for such a consideration, the terrible woman was all attention for her "poor little pussy-cat;" for thus she had definitely dubbed Henrietta, becoming daily more familiar, and adding this odious and ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." John 10:15, 17, 18. And lest any should think that he died simply in the character of a martyr, he elsewhere explains that "the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many"—more literally, "a ransom instead of many" (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45), where the sacrificial and vicarious nature of our ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Porbus to Poussin, seeing that the latter trembled and blushed with shame, for the young scholar had the pride of poverty; "take them, he has the ransom of two kings ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... them a penny, sir," said Beth. "If they are holding him for a ransom Uncle is in no personal danger, and we have no right to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... my life," she said to her unknown companion; "do not make that life a curse. Take pity on an unfortunate and sorely persecuted girl. I have no ransom to pay you; but free me, and you will earn my daily prayers ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... He spoke will at last be adopted: "Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many[30]." ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... the consequences of the act of redemption by four different metaphors drawn from things most familiar to those, for whom it was to be illustrated, namely, sin-offerings or sacrificial expiation; reconciliation; ransom from slavery; satisfaction of a just creditor by vicarious payment of the debt. These all refer to ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... sister-block, and so on. His ground tackle, long saved up for a bonne bouche, had provided funds for that last night in the gambling hell, where we both got cleared out together; and the balance that was left didn't represent a mosquito's ransom. ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... and just, the unjust to save? Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?" He asked, but all the Heavenly Quire stood mute, And silence was in Heaven: on Man's behalf Patron or intercessor none appeared— Much less that durst upon his own head draw The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set. ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... the London Stock Exchange, and my books were scarcely as satisfactory as our bandit auditors could have desired them to be. However they took a kindly view of the case, and allowed me to pass through. But pardon me, I see your ransom has arrived. I am afraid I must say good ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander was engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for the members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum of ten thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace by the cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several of which were not yet in Alexander's possession. At ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... (save for the three regular feudal aids—the ransom of the King, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter) is to be imposed except by the Common Council of the nation; and to this Council archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons are to be called by special ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... them a bishop and his two grand-vicars, are arrested, then examined, robbed, and murdered by the peasantry.—Below Autun, especially in the district of Roanne, the villagers burn the rent-rolls of national property; the volunteers put property-owners to ransom; both, apart from each other or together, give themselves up "to every excess and to every sort of iniquity against those whom they suspect of incivism under pretense of religious opinions."[3286] However preoccupied or upset Roland's mind may be by the philosophic generalities ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... love all things with a perfect love, That would e'en coin its own heart-drops to pay Life's ransom from the bitterness of woe, Bear tenderly upon the weaknesses Of flesh, and its oft seen infirmities, And turn with hope and trustfulness to man; Let me not be a stunted thorn on earth, With jagged points to scare all fondness off, Unsweeten'd by ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... spring; namely, the infinite unbounded grace of a provoked God, who having erected a righteous tribunal, Jesus Christ would separate such as by faith and repentance he had brought home and united to himself by the grace of adoption, and on the foot of his having laid down his life as a ransom for them, had appointed them to salvation, when all the philosophy, temperance, and righteousness in the world besides had been ineffectual. And this, I say, it was, that made Felix, this ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... prisoner, on the information, as was said, of the Indians of Tecuantepec, that he meant to burn the Spaniards in the quarters which had been assigned them in the temples. Some of the Spaniards alleged that Alvarado made him a prisoner in order to extort gold for his ransom. However this may have been, he died in prison of vexation, after Alvarado had got from him to the value of 30,000 crowns. His son was permitted to succeed him in the government, from whom Alvarado obtained more gold than he had done from the father. Alvarado now ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... troopers, are so ignorant and unwarlike as yet, that they know not the meaning of the word "quarter," refusing it when offered, and imploring "mercy" instead. Others are little children, for whom a heavy ransom shall yet be paid. Others, cheaper prisoners, are ransomed on the spot. Some plunder has also been taken, but the soldiers look longingly on the larger wealth that must be left behind, in the hurry of retreat,—treasures that, otherwise, no trooper of Rupert's would have spared: scarlet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... seem an extravagant price to pay for the boarding-out of Crispina. Of course, he had severe qualms of conscience about the arrangement. Later on, when he took me into his confidence, he told me that in paying the ransom, or hush-money as I should have called it, he was partly influenced by the fear that if he refused it the kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment on their captive. It was better, he ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... resolution. The roads in Spain are in a worse state than ever; and in Estremadura particularly, which for some time past has enjoyed a tolerable state of tranquillity, a band of Carlist robbers have lately made their appearance, who murder, make prisoner, or put at ransom every person who has the misfortune to fall into their hands. I therefore deem it wise to avoid, if possible, the alternative of being shot or having to pay one thousand pounds for being set at liberty, which has already befallen ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... moment gazing at her name, "Miss Kate Ransom," on the card she gave him, his mind aglow with the consciousness of her remarkable beauty, the famous Kentucky type, ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... heart of man that most of those who have paid the ransom and won liberty-ease-have in the winning of it created their own incapacity for enjoying the conquest, and toil on till death; it is the others, the ill-endowed or the unlucky, who have been unable to overcome fortune and escape their slavery, to ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... Islander; who, it appears, upon hearing that there were two white boys in captivity, at Aureed, embarked in a canoe with his wife Pamoy, and went for the express purpose of obtaining them, taking for the purpose of barter some fruit. The price of their ransom was a branch of bananas, for each. They returned by way of Darnley's Island, where they stopped a few days, and then reached Murray's Island, where they remained ever since, and were most kindly treated. Duppar gave little D'Oyly to a native named Oby to take care ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... six-gun sloop off Malabar, he turned tail, him an' his two great galleons, an' ran in under the forts. Even then we'd ha' had him out an' fought him, only that the old man had an Indian princess aboard he was takin' in to Calicut for ransom. That was where Sol Brig got his broad gold—kidnappin'. Twenty times we worked it—a dash in an' a fight out, quick an' bloody—then to sea in the old red sloop, all her sails fair pullin' the sticks out of her, an' maybe a man-o'-war blazin' away at our quarter. Weeks after, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... Mecca. Unluckily, the caravan was attacked and pillaged by the Bedouins, and the pilgrims were taken prisoners. My brother became the slave of a man who beat him daily, hoping to drive him to offer a ransom, although, as Schacabac pointed out, it was quite useless trouble, as his relations were as poor as himself. At length the Bedouin grew tired of tormenting, and sent him on a camel to the top of a high ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... under two commanders, Pyrrhus and Hannibal. On account of the good faith of the one, we hold him in no unfriendly remembrance; [Footnote: Pyrrhus, after the only victory that he obtained over the Romans, treated his prisoners with signal humanity, and restored them without ransom. See De Officiis, i. 12] the other because of his cruelty our people must always hate. [Footnote: It may be doubted wheter Hannibal deserved the reproach here implied. The Roman historians ascribe to him acts of cruelty ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... their Indian hosts, and in the flight of their companions, who, fearful of their own safety, made all sail on their ships, and bore away, leaving their unfortunate countrymen to their fate, without attempting and even refusing to ransom such of them whose lives were spared, from having been less obnoxious to the Indians than the others. This fatal accident left the surviving crews so much weakened in numerical strength, that not having men enough ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... as they hurried through the gardens. "A week ago I got a cable from Paris saying that a kidnapping gang were after Dorothy. I'm a millionaire, and the scum are after ransom. I cabled to McNeill, my Paris agent, to come right here with half a dozen of the best detectives in France, scooped up Mr. Buist of the New York police,"—he nodded towards the short, clean-shaven, grimy man—"borrowed a yacht, and came along myself. Being in a hurry, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... a ransomed fellow-captive the brothers contrived to inform their family of their condition, and the poor people at Alcala at once strove to raise the ransom money, the father disposing of all he possessed, and the two sisters giving up their marriage portions. But Dali Mami had found on Cervantes the letters addressed to the King by Don John and the Duke of Sesa, and, concluding that his prize ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Romans had not performed all the terms of the treaty for which John had been given in pledge by Belisarius, but he was prepared to let him be ransomed as a prisoner of war. His grandmother, who was still alive, got together the money for his ransom, not less than two thousand pounds of silver, and would have ransomed her grandson; but when this money arrived at Dara, the Emperor heard of the transaction and forbade it, that the wealth of Romans might not be conveyed to ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... commencing on the 10th of August, were not concluded until the 5th of September, when a treaty of peace was signed. There had been a moment when the onlooking world believed that unless Russia agreed to ransom the island of Saghalien by paying to Japan a sum of 120 millions sterling,—$580,000,000, the conference would be broken off. Nor did such an exchange seem unreasonable, for were Russia expelled from the northern part of Saghalien, which ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... true military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. A species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with a view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake of ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought on either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their present foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the general ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... unmarried prince like Don John. To which the Duc d'Arscot replied that it came to him as a present, having been sent to him by a bashaw belonging to the Grand Seignior, whose son she had made prisoners in a signal victory obtained over the Turks. Don John having sent the bashaw's sons back without ransom, the father, in return, made him a present of a large quantity of gold, silver, and silk stuffs, which he caused to be wrought into tapestry at Milan, where there are curious workmen in this way; and he had the Queen's bedchamber hung with tapestry representing the battle ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Lieutenant-General Carliell who appeared at the head of a thousand men. They were quickly dispersed by the invaders who entered the gates with little loss and proceeded to the plaza where they encamped. For twenty-five days Drake held the deserted city, carrying on negotiations meanwhile for its ransom. When these flagged he ordered the gradual destruction of the town and every morning for eleven days a number of buildings were burned and demolished, a work of some difficulty on account of the solidity of the houses. Not quite one-third of the city ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... be killed, had been almost equally unhappy: it was well my page told me you disarmed him in this rencounter; yet you, he says, are wounded, some sacred drops of blood are fallen to the earth and lost, the least of which is precious enough to ransom captive queens: oh! Haste Philander, to my arms for cure, I die with fear there may be danger——haste, and let me bathe, the dear, the wounded part in floods of tears, lay to my warm lips, and bind it with my torn hair: oh! Philander, I rave ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... mirth! They are blessed things, those remote and unchanging streams!—they fill us with the same love as if they were living creatures!—and in a green corner of the world there is one that, for my part, I never see without forgetting myself to tears—tears that I would not lose for a king's ransom; tears that no other sight or sound could call from their source; tears of what affection, what soft regret; tears that leave me for days afterwards, a better and ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... eyrie, just as it stood a hundred years ago. Three or four generations have lived within its walls, and they are as French to-day as they were then. They want nothing of the modern gauds of the present. Grandmothers used the clumsy furniture, and it is almost worth a king's ransom, it has so ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... his countrymen, by every motive, to abstain from any violation of their faith: and finding his remonstrances useless, he attached himself to the Chippeway chief, and avowed his determination to save him or perish. Awed by such intrepidity, the Sioux finally agreed that he should ransom the Chippewa. This he did at the expense of all the property he possessed. The Sioux chief now accompanied him on his journey, until he considered him safe from any of the parties of the Sioux, who might ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... am not worthy to be taken even for a ransom!" said the proud, cold voice, not betraying ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Atahualpa, the Inca, son of Huayna-Capac, was imprisoned at Cajamarco. Four, five hundred years ago, it was. By the great Pizarro. And there was gold at Cuzco, to the south, and Atahualpa, for his ransom, ordered that this ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... they were able to gather together and to carry away money and jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners, whom they held for ransom. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... of enmity which we Christians ascribe to our God; that is but a figure of speech: and even there is a derivative enmity; an enmity founded on something in man subsequent to his creation, and having a ransom annexed to it. But the enmity of the heathen gods was original—that is, to the very nature of man, and as though man had in some stage of his career been their rival; which indeed he was, if we adopt Milton's hypothesis of the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... him? she answered, "I do not know; I did not observe him." On what, then, said one of the company did you fix your attention? "On him," replied she, (referring to the generous speech which her husband had just made,) "who said he would give a thousand lives to ransom my liberty." "Oh," cried the colonel, when reading it, "how ought we to fix our eyes and hearts on Him who, not in offer, but in reality, gave his own precious life to ransom us from the most dreadful slavery, and from eternal destruction!" But this is only one instance ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... and irresistible authority. The persons who have thus squandered away the precious treasure of their crimes, the persons who have made this prodigal and wild waste of public evils, (the last stake reserved for the ultimate ransom of the state,) have met in their progress with little, or rather with no opposition at all. Their whole march was more like a triumphal procession than the progress of a war. Their pioneers have gone before them, and demolished and laid everything ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... finding her answer the description, give a certificate thereof gratis, to be deemed a necessary clearance, without which the commander should not depart: that if, after the first day of July, any captain of a privateer should agree for the ransom of any neutral vessel, or the cargo, or any part thereof, after it should have been taken as prize, and in pursuance of such agreement should actually discharge such prize, he should be deemed guilty of piracy; but that with respect to contraband merchandise, he might take it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... instant moment[A] in the American plantations? No; I always fought fair, and never refused Quarter when mine enemy threw up his point; nor, unless a foeman's death were required for Lawful Reprisals, did I ever deny moderate Ransom. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... day nine hundred prisoners, of which number not more than seventy were free men. This account I received from Daman Jumma, who had thirty slaves at Kemmoo, all of whom were made prisoners by Mansong. Again, when a freeman is taken prisoner, his friends will sometimes ransom him by giving two slaves in exchange; but when a slave is taken, he has no hopes of such redemption. To these disadvantages, it is to be added, that the Slatees, who purchase slaves in the interior countries, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... missionaries—and nothing that I could say, or that I could promise, had the smallest effect on the savages. But for severe and tedious illness, I should long since have been on my way back to Arizona with the necessary ransom. As it is, I am barely strong enough to write this letter. But I can head a subscription to pay expenses; and I can give instructions to any person who is willing to attempt the deliverance of ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the Greeks their joint assent declare, The father said, the generous Greeks relent, To accept the ransom, and restore the fair: Revere the priest, and speak their joint assent; Not so the tyrant; he, with kingly pride, Atrides, Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied [Not so ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... Horncastle, but the Pope annulled the election, and made Gilbert Welton bishop. He was a very busy official of the king; amongst other matters he was one of the commissioners who treated for the ransom of David of Scotland, and was also a warden of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... turn to look, not on the instances of it that shine through the ages on the page of history, and make men thrill as they gaze, and think better of the human nature that can do such things, but on the Christ hanging on the Cross because He loved those who did not love Him, and giving His life a ransom for sinners. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... made—that the body of the cup might belong to him, but the soul of the cup did belong to another; or her assertion that where the soul was there the body ought to be; or her argument that He who had the soul had the right to ransom the body—a reasoning possible to a child-like nature only; she had pondered to find the true law of the case, ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... credentials, the Envoy having declined to furnish us, lest the inhabitants should fancy that we were vested with any political power; and therefore we could not interfere, and what became of her I know not, though we were afterwards told that on her resigning her trinkets as her ransom she would be released. Indeed the personal ornaments of the petty chiefs are generally the point of some lawless proceeding like the one alluded to, as they are seldom possessed of sufficient capital in specie to purchase jewels, but exchange their grain and fruits ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... beaten. The utmost pains were taken by the officers, who mostly fell. A lieutenant colonel, a major and five captains, who were in commission in the militia, all fell. Colonel Durkee, and Captains Hewitt and Ransom were likewise killed. In the whole, about two hundred men lost their lives in the action on our side. What number of the enemy were killed is yet uncertain, though I believe a very considerable number. The loss of these men so intimidated ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Love as He loved! A love so unconfined, With arms extended, would embrace mankind. 250 Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when We should behold as many selfs as men; All of one family, in blood allied, His precious blood, that for our ransom died. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... of the finest grade of Italian marble; gardens fit for the palace of a king; a retinue of servants such as one scarcely finds on the ducal estates of the proudest families of England and a mansion that is furnished with treasures of art, any one of which is worth a queen's ransom." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... as we were saying, the 94 Getae returned after a long siege to their own land, enriched by the ransom they had received. Now the race of the Gepidae was moved with envy when they saw them laden with booty and so suddenly victorious everywhere, and made war on their kinsmen. Should you ask how the Getae and Gepidae are kinsmen, ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... debt and interest even to the son, nor the son the father, even in case of necessity, until the one had made a slave of the other for it. Consequently, if one brother ransomed another brother, or a son his father, the latter remained a slave, as did his descendants, until the value of the ransom was paid with interest. Consequently, the captive was gainer only by the change of master. Such as the above are the monstrous things that are seen where the law of God and Christian charity are lacking. In the division made between heirs, when a slave belonged ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... volley rattled from the dwellings about the square, but the raiders made unswervingly for what was obviously their main objective, the Blue Chip, where most of the male population, unlimited alcohol and a fabulous ransom in gold were ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... hand of the nearest relative. Thus Philip, with his brandished tomahawk, considered himself but the honored executor of justice. Assasamooyh, however, at length leaped a bank, and, plunging into the forest, eluded his foe. The English then succeeded, by a very heavy ransom, in purchasing his life, and Philip returned to Mount Hope, feeling that his father's memory had ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... false. Again the altar was set up in Saint Paul's Cathedral; and when Bishop Bonner came from the Marshalsea, great rejoicing was made. Many by the way bade him welcome home, and "as many of the women as might kissed him." No Gospeller would have kissed him for a King's ransom. On the 5th of September came Mr Ive, with news of Mr Underhill at once good and bad. He was released from Newgate, but was so weak and ill that they were obliged to carry him home in a horse-litter, and the gaoler's servant bore him down the stairs to the litter in his arms like a child; and for ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... stout-hearted, and strong that they set a much higher value upon him than upon his comrade Eastman; for when their friends sent money to Montreal to ransom them, they asked only sixty dollars for Eastman, while John had to pay one hundred. So much for being brave! The money was paid, and the two men were sent to Montreal, and from there to Albany. As they came through ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... certain Hreithmar had it given him by the god Loki as a weregild for the slaying of the former's son, Otur or Otter, who occasionally took the shape of that animal. Loki in his turn obtained the ransom from the dwarf Andwari, who had stolen it from the river-gods of the Rhine. The dwarf, incensed at losing the treasure, pronounced a most dreadful curse upon it and its possessors, saying that it would be the death of those who should get hold of it. Thus Hreithmar, its first owner, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... close, he took off his hat and made a bow. 'Chentlemen of the roat, I salude you,' he says. 'You haf kebt your bromise to the letter, and you will fint that Albert von Schiller has kept his. Hauptman!' says he to Starlight, 'I delifer to you the ransom of dies wothy chentleman and his most excellend and hoch-besahltes laty, who has much recovered from her fadigues, and I ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... a system. Predatory excursions figure conspicuously in the history of all the tribes. Robber is a title of honor.[1073] Pliny said that the Arabs were equally addicted to theft and trade. They pillaged caravans and held them for ransom, or gave them safe conduct across the desert for a price. Formerly the Turkoman tribes of the Trans-Caspian steppes levied on the bordering districts, notably the northern part of Khorasan, which belonged more to the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... he entered Moscow in triumph after the victory of Embach, and the capture of Noteburg and Marienburg; at thirty-one he began the city of St. Petersburg; at thirty-nine he was defeated by the Turks and forced to ransom himself and army. His latter years were mostly devoted to civil and maritime affairs. He died ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... wars which were carried on at that remote epoch seem not to have been waged with any view to permanent conquest, or even to territorial aggrandizement, but merely to revenge an insult, to exact a ransom, or to abstract slaves and cattle. The history of the judges supplies no facts which would lead us to infer that during any of tie servitudes, which for their repeated transgressions were inflicted on the Hebrews, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... for dining at Naples,) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person with whose society I was greatly pleased at first—indeed, we had met in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose—a man of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to them ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... then directed to lay down two nobles as his ransom, and to claim privilege by reciting the following doggerel verses, which were dictated to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... and I should be left lying here, while he takes another! But how should he choose me? They are all so beautiful; and even my scent is nearly gone. And he cannot know that it is I lying here. Alas! alas!' But as she thought thus, she felt his hand clasp her, heard the ransom-money fall, and felt that she was pressed to his face and lips, as he passed from the shop. He had chosen her; he had known her. She opened her eyes: her husband's kiss had awakened her. She did not speak, but looked up thankfully in his ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... the custom of the clime and age, the dualma was open at the bosom, sloping from each lovely white shoulder to the waist, where the two folds joining, formed an angle, at which the purple vest was fastened by a diamond worth a monarch's ransom. The sleeves were wide, but short, scarcely reaching to the elbow, and leaving all the lower part of the snowy arms completely bare. Her ample trousers were of purple silk, covered with the finest muslin, and drawn in tight a little above ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... themselves to cavalry, until in a force of 20,000 men you could not number 2,000 infantry. Besides this they employed all their ingenuity to relieve themselves and their soldiers of fatigue and peril, by refraining from slaughter and from taking prisoners without ransom. Night attacks and sorties were abandoned; stockades and trenches in the camp were given up; no one thought of a winter campaign. All these things were allowed, or rather introduced, in order to avoid, as I have ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... world-famed Thames from source to mouth, is not this a joy for ever? Liberty is beyond price; now no one is really free unless he can crush his neighbour's interest underfoot, like a horse-roller going over a daisy. Bargee is free, and the ashes of his pipe are worth a king's ransom. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... silver dish which these sea-wolves had robbed from some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine. He spoke a little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the Northman's tongue. We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him better ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors—as once befell a knight of my acquaintance ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... time of the Republic, the Romans were so hard pressed that they consented to purchase immunity with gold. They were in the act of weighing it, a legend tells us, when Camillus appeared on the scene, threw his sword into the scales in place of the ransom, and declared that the Romans should not purchase peace, but would win it with the sword. This act of daring and prompt decision so roused the Romans that they triumphantly swept from the sacred soil the enemy ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... young Radical" once, not to say "a bit of a pickle." You seemed not altogether out of sympathy with such revolutionary proceedings as "revolts" and "barring-outs," and even talked once, if I remember rightly, of putting the Principals "to ransom"—doctrines better worthy of a Calabrian brigand than of a public school-boy. But let bygones be bygones. Now that you are in a position of responsibility and—respectability, you will, of course, abandon all such revolutionary rubbish, and think not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... a lion she stepped up to the desk where the city marshal was throned, and demanded a license for the white dog. The two great silver dollars which she drew from her purse looked very large to the widow Tarbell, yet it was with a feeling of exultation that she paid them as ransom for the white dog. In return for the money she received a small, round piece of metal with a hole bored through it, bearing a certain mystic legend which was to act as a talisman to the wearer. Her name and address were duly entered on the books. Then her agitated little beneficiary ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... persecutors. The principal burgomaster, Heinrich Lambertszoon, was less fortunate. Known to be affluent, he was tortured by exposing the soles of his feet to a fire until they were almost consumed. On promise that his life should be spared he then agreed to pay a heavy ransom; but hardly had he furnished the stipulated sum when, by express order of Don Frederic himself, he was hanged in his own doorway, and his dissevered limbs afterwards nailed to the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... them as being arrayed chiefly in gewgaws and bright-colored clothes. Camped here amid the dark, luxurious vegetation, they and their tents make a charming picture—a scene of life and of contrast in colors which if faithfully transferred to canvas would be worth a king's ransom. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of L.I.) regts. to take possession of the Bedford road this night—Col. Ransom's regt. to march at 5 o'clock. Col. Miles' regt. is on the spot. Cols. Little's & Hitchcock's Regts to possess the Flatbush road & Cols. Johnson's & Martin's to take possession of the road near the river. All these regts. to be at their posts by 6 o'clock. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... taken my eyes from her face for a king's ransom. I have written that she was a queen, and of that there is no manner of doubt. She had the soul of a conqueror, for not a flicker of weakness or disappointment marred her air. Only pride and the stateliest resolution looked out ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... railroad. Major Garrard with his battalion of the Third New York Cavalry went (while the main army was moving) early in the morning to Tompkins bridge, over the Neuse river. He took with him a section of Ransom's Twenty-third New York Artillery. On arriving in the vicinity of the bridge Captain Jacobs, with his company of cavalry, was ordered to charge down to it. He did so, found the bridge in flames, and received fire from the enemy. It will again be seen that ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... a debt of twenty-eight slaves and eight bars of copper, each seventy pounds, and did not dare to fire a shot because they saw they had met their match: here his headmen are said to have bound the headmen of villages till a ransom was paid in tusks! Had they only gone three days further to the Babisa, to whom Moene-mokaia's men went, they would have got fine ivory at two rings a tusk, while they had paid from ten to eighteen. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... worthy padre would point out the most distinguished of these gentlemen. 'That one,' he'd say, 'is in for killing two travelers at such or such a pass. This one abducted a wealthy man and demanded ransom from his family, to whom he sent the ears of the unfortunate, and the ransom not coming, his throat was slit. The one over there, killed four men before he was caught,' and so on down the line, such cheerful histories were told. I politely ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... thou wilt; and let thy reason go, To ransom truth, e'en to th' abyss below; Rally the scatter'd causes; and that line Which nature twists be able to untwine. It is thy Maker's will; for unto none But unto reason can he e'er be known. The devils do know thee; but those ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... it were in my power to save your life, beloved Anthony!" said Juliet, sinking on her knees beside him, and clasping his fettered hands within her own. "I have loved you long and tenderly. I shall see you no more on earth. If my life could ransom yours, I would give it without a sigh; but will is powerless; our hands are tied; we are indeed the creatures of circumstance. All that now remains for us is to submit—to bow with fortitude to the mysterious ways of Providence. To acknowledge, even in our hearts' deep ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... since it is his will The prophecy to fulfil, That mankind in sin not spill,[335] For them to thole[336] the pain; And with his death ransom to make, As prophets before of him spake. I counsel thee, thy grief to slake, Thy weeping may not gain In sorrow; Our boot[337] he buys full bayne,[338] Us all from ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... into the rain. The chauffeur left his seat and stood in the mud with the air of a patient but rather sulky martyr. What is the use of belonging to the aristocracy of labour, of being a member of the Motor Drivers' Union, of being able to hold up civilisation to ransom, if you are yourself liable to be held up and made to stand in the rain by a common soldier, a man no better than an unskilled labourer. Nothing but the look of the rifle in the unskilled labourer's hand would have induced Simpkins to leave his ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... have manifest resolutions. We poor shepherds have no wealth but our flocks, and therefore can we not make requital with any great treasures; but our recompense is thanks, and our rewards to her friends without feigning. For ransom, therefore, of this our rescue, you must content yourself to take such a kind gramercy as a poor shepherdess and her page may give, with promise, in what we may, never to prove ingrateful. For this gentleman that is hurt, young Rosader, ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge |
