"Red-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... caught red-handed firing the grass on Warenda Station, on his way to Boulia. He was brought before the Boulia justices, who sentenced him to three months' imprisonment under the "Careless Use of Fire Act." This was the maximum penalty that could be inflicted. On completion of ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... telling and as striking as this one is practically numberless. They also show a far stronger and keener faculty of poetic if not of dramatic imagination. The casual encounter of little Sanders with the yet red-handed murderer of his father is not comparable for depth and subtlety of effect with the scene in which Arden's friend Franklin, riding with him to Raynham Down, breaks off his "pretty tale" of a perjured ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... He wellnigh took me red-handed; and that was better luck than I deserved. If I'd not been drunk, and in my tantrums, you'd never have got my hand within a thousand years of ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... I had finished my copying, I took the thing back, meaning to slip it under Miss Denistoun's cushion. But she had returned to her chair, and so I was caught red-handed. 'So it was you?' said she. 'What have you been doing with my magazine?' 'Skimming it,' said I—which was true enough, literally, but I didn't manage it very well. 'Did you find anything to interest you specially?' she asked. 'Well, yes,' I admitted;' I picked it ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... co-operation with the Dominion Fisheries Protection Service and Dominion Government telegraph line; also with the Provincial Government, which would naturally be glad to have red-handed offenders consigned to it for punishment. The Commission's boats might be very useful in giving information to the Fisheries Protection Service, and vice versa. All conservation telegrams should ...
— Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... forth—had miscarried, and he knew the porthole trick would be useless once we got into the open sea. He took a big chance. He discarded his clerical guise and peeped into your room—you remember?—but you were awake, and I made no move when he slipped back to his own cabin; I wanted to take him red-handed." ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... in a tavern appositely labeled the "Inn of Good Morals," he began to throw bottles at some stevedores who had accepted a cut in wages; and when the police came in to restore order, they caught him, red-handed, chasing his enemies over the tops of the tables with his knife drawn. More than one week-end he spent in the jail at headquarters whence his mother's tears and the "pull" tio Mariano had as a politician and distributor of election money, would finally extricate him. And arrest proved so salutary ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Sybilla as a possible accomplice of the Sieur de Retz, but by the intercession of the Scottish maidens, as well as by the sworn evidence of Sholto and the Lord James, testifying that wholly by her means Gilles de Retz had finally been caught red-handed, she was permitted ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... they were tried before the Lord Provost, and each sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour. I was called to give evidence in the court, and chagrined the two London sharpers must have felt to find out how they had been caught red-handed. This was my first appearance in ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... Badese and Suabese rush to Homburg and Wisbaden. There is a very salutary law in every land where gambling is permitted, that no inhabitant of that land be allowed to play at the public table, and if any one is caught red-handed, he is usually imprisoned, and his winnings, if any, confiscated. We can call to mind a laughable instance of this at Wisbaden. Two old peasants, who had probably come for a day's pleasure and to see the sights, managed to find their ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... more ardent aspirants. The delvers after mineral wealth amid the hills, and the herders on the surrounding ranches, felt that this was a personal matter between them, and acted accordingly. Three-finger Boone, who was caught red-handed timing the exact hour of Mr. Moffat's exit from his lady-love's presence, was indignantly ducked in the watering-trough before the Miners' Retreat, and given ten minutes in which to mount his cayuse and get safely across the camp boundaries. He required ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... engagement in some such task. They made several surprise entrances but failed to catch me in the act of writing. The heavy tread of their coming feet always gave me ample warning so that I could get my notes into safe hiding. But one night they burst open the door suddenly and I was caught red-handed. On my knees was my pad at which I was writing feverishly. But the pad was inscribed with notes which I regarded as of an emergency character. Realising the object of their unexpected entry I clapped the pad on the table, thus covering ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... on guard against Aegisthus while vengeance is being done on Clytaemnestra.—Cries from within; Electra and Chorus perceive that the deed is done.—Enter Orestes and Pylades from the Palace red-handed; they are about to triumph when Electra thrusts them back, for Aegisthus is at hand.—Enter Aegisthus enquiring for the strangers ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... year there was great rivalry between the players representing Harvard and Pennsylvania. The contest was sharp and bitterly fought all the way through. Both teams had complained frequently to Edwards, the Umpire. Finally he caught two men red-handed, so to speak. There was no argument. Both men admitted it. It so happened that both men were very valuable to their respective teams. The loss of either man would be greatly felt. Both captains cornered Edwards ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... suit his purpose. He thought his position one uncommonly difficult. As Maitland, he had on his hands a female thief, a hardened character, a common malefactor (strange that he got so little relish of the terms!), caught red-handed; as Maitland, his duty was to hand her over to the law, to be dealt with as—what she was. Yet, even while these considerations were urging themselves upon him, he knew his eyes appraised her with open admiration and interest. She stood before him, slight, delicate, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... together.... Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an' he planned to sell the Border Legion outright. There was to be a big stake in it for him. He held off day after day, only tippin' off some of the gang. There's Dartt an' Singleton an' Frenchy an' Texas all caught red-handed at jobs. Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin' them jest to prove his claim.... Aw! I've got the proofs! Jest wait. Listen to me!... You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce. An' the job he had put up on us was grand. To-day he was to squeal on the whole gang. You know how he began ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... felt as certain Americans do when they go to Paris—that the moral restraints of his native place no longer applied. With all his ability, he was not shrewd enough to realize that the Police Department was having him as well as the rest of us carefully shadowed. He was caught red-handed by a plain-clothes man doing what he had no business to do; and from that time on he dared not act save as those who held his secret permitted him to act. Thenceforth those officials who stood behind the Police Department had one man on the committee on ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... her," agreed the old man, impatiently. "I never mention it myself unless I catch her red-handed; then I storm a little to ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... forth in his own way for a quarter of an hour. There had been no possible doubt of the crime, it was the week after the Derby, and Bulteel had lost heavily it was said. He was caught red-handed and got off abroad that night, and the matter would have been hushed up probably but for the added sensation of Lady Hilda's elopement with him. That set society by the ears, and the thing was the thrill of the season. Mr. Marchant had been "all broken-up" by it, and ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... of the men, seeing how the wind lay, swore before heaven that he saw me shoot the deer, and took me red-handed, with my bow in my hand. And when one sheep leads the way, the others follow. They all swore it was I; while some added that my comrade lay asleep under a tree, and knew nothing of the matter till I ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... clenched hands in wild despair. They were caught like birds in a trap. No hope!—no escape! Nothing left for it now, but to die red-handed. He dashed into the house with the old hut-keeper ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... countless aeons pass them by, They rise at last to day. The spirits of our fathers rise Triumphant through the starry skies; And we may hear their choral song,— The firm in faith, the noble throng,— It bids us crush a deadly wrong, Wrought by red-handed Cain. AND WE SHALL CONQUER! for the Right Goes onward with resistless might: His hand shall win for us the fight. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... line," carried by the police. "Wide open" gambling and debauchery made the city pleasing to "trade," but burglaries and holdups did not. One night it chanced that while Jack Duane was drilling a safe in a clothing store he was caught red-handed by the night watchman, and turned over to a policeman, who chanced to know him well, and who took the responsibility of letting him make his escape. Such a howl from the newspapers followed this that Duane was slated for sacrifice, and barely got out of town in ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Hal promptly, and with enthusiasm. "Shrimp was hard to swallow, and he would have made this place purgatory to us. But he was caught, red-handed, and we've had a lesson, the first day in the service, that real justice rules always in the Army. The breaking-in as recruits, Noll, is going to be harder than I thought, even if we have such fine men as Brimmer and Davis all the time. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... His business had been done for him, and he had escaped the guilt of it. His second, that here lay a chance of fair profit. Godfrey was a great man, and Bedloe and Carstairs were the seediest of rogues. He might make favor for himself with the Government if he had them caught red-handed. It would help his status in Aldersgate Street.... But he must act at once or the murderers would be gone. He tiptoed back along the passage, tumbled down the crazy steps, and ran up the steep entry to where he saw a glimmer of light ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... colony composed themselves to await in such tranquillity as they could command, the ordeal of sleeping, sitting bolt upright in a French diligence, upon a dark, tempestuous night, and surrounded on all sides by the dreadful presence of "red-handed war." The last thing I remember ere the drowsy god "MURPHY" sent his fairies to weave their cobwebs about my eyelids, was "OLD CONNECTICUT." She didn't look like the battering-ram that she was. She had taken that ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... "Who says to stop? He's the chicken-killer. I got him red-handed." He held up one ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... still further, paralyzed at the sight, at the words, at the awful thought that a murderer, red-handed, stood before them. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud-voiced; and they and their broad jokes are about all I remember of the place. I could look up my history-books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or two; for it figured rather largely in the English wars. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suffer death except by the voice of the people. The Valerian, the Porcian, and the Sempronian laws had all been passed to that effect. Now there had been no popular vote as to the execution of Lentulus and the other conspirators, who had been taken red-handed in Rome in the affair of Catiline. Their death had been decreed by the Senate, and the decree of the Senate had been carried out by Cicero; but no decree of the Senate had the power of a law. In spite of that decree the old law was in force; and no appeal to the people had been allowed to Lentulus. ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... enemy was vengeance for a great wrong. Having accomplished his purpose he quietly walked out of the cafe and went away. I happened to be on the spot shortly afterwards, and inquired, with some surprise at the escape of the murderer, why he had not been arrested red-handed. "He had a sword in his hand!" said the person to whom I had addressed myself, in a tone which implied that that quite settled the matter—that of course it was absolutely out of the question to attempt to interfere with a man who had ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... gasped an astonished voice. "Well, of all effrontery! Got him, you miserable thief? The police are coming and they'll get you, and I can identify you, if they don't succeed in nabbing you red-handed." ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... other poor creature. But you will find that you have chosen the wrong person. And it's no excuse for you her being a little—a little—not so bright as some girls, and not so good-looking. Oh, it's enough to make any girl loathe her own looks! You mustn't suppose you can come here red-handed—yes, it's the same as a murder, and any true girl would say so—and tell me you care for me. No, Walter Ashley, I haven't fallen so low as that, though I have the disgrace of your acquaintance. And I hope—I hope—if you don't like my smoking, and offering you cocktails, and talking ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... lighter colored eyes than is at all common in Mizora. Her long, blonde hair hung straight and unconfined over a dress of thick, white material. Her attitude and expression were dejected and sorrowful. I had visited prisons in my own land where red-handed murder sat smiling with indifference. I had read in newspapers, labored eloquence that described the stoicism of some hardened criminal as a trait of character to be admired. I had read descriptions where mistaken eloquence exerted itself to waken sympathy for a criminal who had never ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... tell the combatant, unless he be caught red-handed. They all wear khaki, the only difference being that a civilian wears pearl buttons, the soldiers the metal military button with the Imperial Crown stamped on it. When it is borne in mind that the buttons are hooked ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... keeping out of trouble. Quiet in manner, he was fertile in devising mischief, and easily persuaded his older brother, who was always looking for something to do, to execute his plans. It was usually Claude who was caught red-handed. Sitting mild and contemplative on his quilt on the floor, Ralph would whisper to Claude that it might be amusing to climb up and take the clock from the shelf, or to operate the sewing-machine. When they were older, and played out of doors, he had only to insinuate ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... case in the doomed city of San Francisco. All seemed to lead towards such a carnival of ruin as the earth has rarely seen. The demon of fire followed close upon the heels of the unseen fiend of the earth's hidden caverns, and ran red-handed through the metropolis of the West, kindling a thousand unhurt buildings, while the horror-stricken people stood aghast in terror, as helpless to combat this new enemy as they were to check the ravages of ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... outcast thief with loathsome wrecks that had once laid claim to the name of woman. Every foot of it reeked with incest and murder. Bandits' Roost, Bottle Alley, were names synonymous with robbery and red-handed outrage. By night, in its worst days, I have gone poking about their shuddering haunts with a policeman on the beat, and come away in a ferment of anger and disgust that would keep me awake far into the morning hours planning means of its destruction. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... event itself and all that hurrying about in the dark had shocked and excited me! The whole theater of life had changed. Its audience had suddenly enlarged and was rushing over the stage and a kind of terror was in every face and voice. There was a red-handed villain behind the scenes, now, and how many others, I wondered. Men were no longer as they had been. Even the God to whom I prayed was different. As I write the sounds and shadows of that night are in my soul again. I see its gathering gloom. I hear its ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... was passed rapidly down the pier how this ship of pirates had been captured, red-handed, her own captain still on board,—the good ship Alarm having seen a redness in the sky, and heard some firing in the night before; and how Captain How had put it to his crew, Would they fight or not? And ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... British Indian Empire. Twenty years after this, the terrible Nadir Shah, from Persia, occupied the palace, and held high jinks within while his army slaughtered over a hundred thousand of the inhabitants in the streets. When this red-handed marauder took his departure he carried away with him booty to the value of eighty millions sterling in the value of that time. Among the plunder was the famous Peacock Throne, alone reputed to be worth six million pounds. This remarkable piece of kingly ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... then Alfred drew in his breath and bore down upon Jimmy with fresh vehemence. "The only time I get even a semblance of truth out of Zoie," he cried, "is when I catch her red-handed." Again he pounded the table and again Jimmy winced. "And even then," he continued, "she colours it so with her affected innocence and her plea about just wishing to be a 'good fellow,' that she almost ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... Vesta, the Temple of Castor and Pollux; we have a more vague notion of the Senate Hall; the hideous arch of Septimius Severus stares us in the face; so does the lovely column of evil Phocas, the monster of the east, the red-handed centurion-usurper who murdered an Emperor and his five sons to reach the throne. And perhaps we have been told where the Rostra stood, and the Rostra Julia, and that the queer fragment of masonry by the arch is supposed to be the 'Umbilicus,' the centre of the Roman world. There is no excuse for ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... at me with dancing eyes, and never in all my life have I known such pride and joy as that glance afforded me. There I stood before her, taken red-handed in the act, handcuffed, and openly confessing with my own lips my own deed; but any doubt of me was impossible to her true heart. I sounded at that moment the superb loyalty of her nature, and my pride in her seemed to lift me ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... took leave of us, abandoning us to our own designs. Mine was to find a large arm-chair and sit down in it, and give Speed a few instructions. Speed's was to prowl around Paradise for information, and, if possible, telegraph to Lorient for troops to catch Buckhurst red-handed. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... course. Well, Doctor Browne, my keeper and I were out taking a look round at the young pheasants in their coops last evening, when we took these confounded young dogs red-handed, ferreting rabbits with that scoundrelly poaching vagabond you have taken into your service, when nobody else would ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... upon imagining other, minor catastrophes, which she would follow up with passion. She would beguile herself with a sudden suspicion that Francoise had been robbing her, that she had set a trap to make certain, and had caught her betrayer red-handed; and being in the habit, when she made up a game of cards by herself, of playing her own and her adversary's hands at once, she would first stammer out Francoise's awkward apologies, and then reply to them ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Gay far more than the original poaching had done. To be flouted in his own pasture on the subject of his own game by a handsome barbarian, whom he had caught red-handed in the act of stealing, would have appealed irresistibly to his sense of humour, if it ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... witness, telling how they had trapped us in the act, red-handed: and as for this jewel, they had seen their master handle it any time in these six ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... of course had to bear his share too. No-one dared say anything to him, himself—let them try if they dared! The rag and bone man's fingers tingled when he heard all this backbiting—why couldn't he and his be allowed to go in peace. He wouldn't mind catching one of the rogues red-handed. He would knock him down in cold blood, whatever the ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that is straight," muttered Dick. "At all events, I'll look into this game for all it's worth. What if we are about to catch the thief red-handed?" ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... the ranch full of plans for the camping trip, and for the rest of the day, and for several days following, made out exhaustive lists of eatables, bedding and utensils such as would have provided amply for a regiment of soldiers. In the midst of the preparations Sarah was caught red-handed packing her drawn-work ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... room for doubt that the victim of the tragedy and the man who had sold him the diamond were identical. He began to realize the responsibilities of the bargain, and the daring of his visitor of the day before, in venturing before him almost red-handed, gave him an unpleasant idea of the lengths to which he was prepared to go. In a pleasanter direction it gave him another idea; it was strong confirmation of Levi's ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... have stated it, Rasula," said Chase. "I'm sorry you are against me, for I would be your friend. I've told you how to reach the secret cave. The chests are there. The passage is closed. You can trap him in the attempt to rob the bank. I could have taken him red-handed and given him over to Lord Deppingham. But you would never have known the truth. Now I ask you to judge for yourselves. Give him a fair trial, Rasula—as you would any man accused of crime—and be just. If you need a witness—an eye-witness—call ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... character, and cruel in the extreme. Finally a game warden caught him red-handed, arrested him, and took him to Cody for trial. It happened that the judge on the bench had once trapped with him, and therefore "he set the game-killer free, while the game-warden ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... type, you know. One sees many of the sort there. They make a strike in the mines and set up ridiculous establishments regardless of expense. You see them riding in their carriages with two men in the box—red-handed, grizzled old vulgarians who've roughed it in the mountains for twenty years with a pack-mule and a ham and a pick-axe—with their jug of whiskey—and their frowsy red-faced wives decked out in impossible finery. Yes, I do recall this family. There ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... about the ascent, for gusts of ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. Then wild animals howled, and "Ring" was perturbed in spirit about them. Then it was strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man, sleeping as quietly as innocence sleeps. But, above all, it was exciting to lie there, with no better shelter than a bower of pines, on a mountain 11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the Rocky Range, under twelve degrees of frost, hearing ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the spot. Since these notes were commenced five of these robbers have been captured, including the leader of the band to which they belonged, a notorious outlaw named Clemente Martinez. They were taken by means of a stratagem, whereby they were decoyed into an ambush, surrounded, and captured red-handed, as they fought furiously, knowing that they had no mercy to expect at the hands of the soldiers. It was the civil guard at Rancho Veloz who made this successful raid into the hills, and every one of the ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... sick of the plague in the house of Medea, and that she, nevertheless, continued to receive visitors. It had long been decided that she must be taken in the act of sorcery, and warning had that day been given that she expected illustrious company in the evening. The watch were to find her red-handed, so to speak; the leech was to prove whether her house was indeed plague-stricken; and in either case the senate wished to have the sorceress safe in prison and at their mercy, though even Philippus had not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... certainly are not safe here any longer. Howell probably intends to play us false! We shall know from The Sparrow the reason we are here, and, for aught we know, the police are watching and will arrest us red-handed. No," he added, "we must leave this place—all three of us—as soon as possible. You, Lisette, had better go to Paris and explain matters to The Sparrow, while I shall fade away to Switzerland. And you, Mr. Henfrey? Where will ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... impersonation is not a crime. If I had exposed him when we met, you would have gained nothing beyond driving him from the house. Whereas, if we wait, if we pretend to suspect nothing, we shall undoubtedly catch him red-handed in an ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Basuto tribe, his companions becoming hungry, stole a goat and killed it. Zinti ate of the goat, for they told him that they had bought it for some beads, and while they were still eating the Basutos came upon them and caught them red-handed. Next day they were tried by the councillors of the tribe and condemned to die as thieves, but the chief, who wanted servants, spared their lives and set them to labour in his gardens, where they ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... that they were traversing the river trail. He even thought he knew how he could head his man off by a short cut. But this would not serve his purpose. He wanted to get him red-handed, and to leave him now would be to give him a chance that he was confident would be taken advantage of at once. The river trail led to the ranch. And the only branches anywhere along its route were those running north and ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... was farthest removed from the Revolutionists of the vulgar, red-handed class. He consecrated his life to prevent Revolution. All his action in the conflict between Labor and Capital aimed at conciliation. He told the plutocrats their defects with brutal frankness, and if he promoted laws to curb them, it was because he realized, as they did not, that, unless ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... says Mrs. Flynn. "Didn't I catch him red-handed prowlin' about? But if ye want to see what his ugly mug looks like, ye may. There! Sit ye up and ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... to jimmy open the elevator door. His mind was sensitive enough to sense the nearness of others, so there was no chance of his being caught red-handed. When he got the door open, he stepped into the shaft, brought his loathing for the bottom into the fore, and floated up to the top floor. From there it was a simple matter to get to the roof, drop down the side, and enter the open window of ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a bad precedent. A "squaw man" driving out a brown wife to make room for a white is not a heroic figure. It had been done before, but it would not hand down well in the traditions of the settling of this great country. Trespass of law and order, with their swift, red-handed reckoning, were but moves of the great game of colonization. But to shove out a brown woman for a white was a mean move. Few stopped at the Rodneys' ranch, though it marked the first break in the journey from town to the gold-mining country. Rodney had fallen from his ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... red-handed!" he cried, and grasped Nicanor's shoulder. Nicanor winced at the touch, but made no effort to ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... business. Already six days had passed since the Arabs and Nubians had left him alone in his camp; and though it was lucky that we had learned what was going on, it might be too late to profit by the information. Even if we caught Corkran red-handed, he might have hidden his spoil where none but he, or some ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... That the walls of his house were ceiled with jewels, shedding their accumulated lustre of years so that never candle need shine in the place, was well known. That the spellbound souls of all those on his red-handed ancestor's roll were fain to keep watch and ward over their once treasures, by night and noon, white-sheeted and faint in the glare of the sun, wan in the moon, blacker shadows in the starless dark, found belief. And there were those who had seen his seraglio;—but few, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... clever enough to carry on an intrigue of this kind without incurring suspicion is sufficiently clever to answer any direct questioning satisfactorily. No. If Tochatti is the culprit—mind you I only say if—she must be caught with guile, made to commit herself somehow, or be taken red-handed in the act——" He broke off suddenly; and the other two looked ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the better part of his life at his holy books and was fit for nothing else now. His wife, however, would take no excuse. He must peddle or be nagged to death. And if he ventured to slip into some synagogue of an afternoon and read a page or two he would be in danger of being caught red-handed, so to say, for, indeed, she often shadowed him to make sure that he ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... person the movement of desires, hopes, ambitions. Once he caught himself bowing and making gestures, almost involuntarily, before the mirrors. He laughed aloud, his mother laughed also, for she had caught him in the act red-handed. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... he did too much; and the scout who does too much blunders just as surely as he who does too little. Had Chippy sculled quietly away with the ample information he had already gained, the thieves might have been taken red-handed. But he burned to put, as he thought, a finishing touch to his night's work. He wanted to see what was going on in the forepeak of the Three Spires, and he wanted to see the faces of the men; it was almost certain that he would recognise people so familiar with Quay Flat and Elliotts' warehouse. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... august companion with whom one walks with the gods. He is also in league with the Noseless One. His way leads to truth naked, and to death. He gives clear vision, and muddy dreams. He is the enemy of life, and the teacher of wisdom beyond life's wisdom. He is a red-handed ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... in the darkness of night betakes himself to Rome. He and his accomplices enter the house of Pietro Comparini and his wife, and, not content with slaying them, also murders Pompilia. But they are discovered, and Guido is caught red-handed. Pompilia's evidence alone is damnatory, for she was not slain outright, and lingers long enough to tell her story. Franceschini is not foiled yet, however. His plea is that he simply avenged the wrong done to him by his wife's adulterous connection with the priest Caponsacchi. But even ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Government enforcement agents, game protectors, State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod's trespass signs fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law breaking and nobody can catch him red-handed. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... stretchers their ghastly burden of bleeding and wounded men. Although coming within musket-range of the American force, no molestation was offered. Their work of humanity was felt to be too sacred for even red-handed War to disturb. Indeed, both American and British wounded were cared for ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in the harness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates and ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... narrowly escaped the vengeance of those two assassins," Guertin said; "how narrowly, neither you nor she will ever know. For months I have watched them closely, both here and in France and Germany, in order to catch them red-handed; but they have been too clever for me, and we must rely upon the evidence which that back-garden in Porchester Terrace will now yield up. The gang is part of a great criminal association, that society of international thieves ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... Orleans. In no other civilized country in the world, nay, more, in no land of barbarians would it be possible to duplicate the scenes of brutality that are reported from New Orleans. In the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting men who had no ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... caught red-handed. Whatever excuses might be put forward, on behalf of his unfortunate dupes, that the Government had refused to heed their just demands, it is certain that Riel himself could plead no such excuses, for he was not at the time even a resident of the country. But, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... as the unknown enemy feels that he can harass us without much risk of being caught red-handed, just so long will he go on with his outrages—-unless we ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... to go on deck, I stole cautiously up the companion-stairs, expecting to catch Van Luck red-handed in the act of playing the spy upon us, but when I reached the skylight I could see no sign of him. From where I stood, however, I was able to observe the captain counting the pearls, and I determined to warn him to have ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... horsemen, that had been planted in ambush many hours before, galloped up, and with these new diabolical engines of war, shot leaden bullets, and laid many an honest fellow low, and so quelled the courage of others that they yielded them prisoners. These being taken red-handed, the victors, who with malice inconceivable had brought cords knotted round their waists, did speedily hang, and by their side the dead ones, to make the gallanter show. "That one at the end was the captain. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... treasurer of the synagogue strode into the notorious shop on the Sabbath itself, catching Simeon Samuels red-handed. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... thing as abstract liberty; it is not even thinkable. If you ask me, "Do you favor liberty?" I reply, "Liberty for whom to do what? Just now I distinctly favor the liberty of the law to cut off the noses of anarchists caught red-handed or red-tongued. If they go in for mutilation let them feel what it is like. If they are not satisfied with the way that things have been going on since the wife of Duke Albert the Pious was held under ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... whose cordial dislike for boys, caused by her unhappy experiences in Manchester, made her suspicious of all that species of humanity, seemed aware of what was going on, but she could not catch them red-handed. And knowing that she suspected them, the brothers made life miserable for her in a hundred ways. They hid her crutch in the most out-of-way places, adroitly misplaced her cooking utensils, or whatever article ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... back into the little office where Mary Carstairs waited, fresh from more cheap plotting in which she was the innocent central figure; and faced her, uncomfortable, ill at ease, disquieted inwardly as a conspirator taken red-handed. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... would fall into a very prettily laid trap," was the grim answer. "No, my dear young lady, we are not going to leave the cave unguarded. I'll have men watching day and night until we catch them red-handed. It is sure to come sooner ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... But still red-handed at your horrid trade You wrought, to reason deaf, and to compassion. But now with gods and men your peace is made I beg you to be good and ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the public learned from the press at the time, hence the writer will only allude in this connection to the effect created in various Circles of the Order, by the attempt upon the part of the Government to thwart the perpetration of the red-handed crimes contemplated by the leaders. When it was officially announced by Reuben Cassile, presiding Grand Seignior of the Chicago Temple, then recently removed from the Invincible Club Hall to McCormick's Building, that disclosures of the Order in St. Louis had ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... red-handed in the streets of Paris in 1870 died with hardly less formality than was observed at the death-scene of the Prince of the Moskowa and Duke of Elchingen, and the truth then became plain. The Bourbons could not, dared not, attempt to carry out the sentence of the law with the forms of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... over their final plans in detail to make sure that everything is understood. The darkness will let us slip up closer to the house, and we may be able to overhear what they say. Don't forget, too, that our main job is to catch the Hoffs red-handed." ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... Reillaghan, bitterly, in Irish, "but I doubt the red-handed villain has cut short the lives of my two brave sons! I only hope he may stop in the country: I'm not widout friends an' followers that 'ud think it no sin in a just cause to pay him in his own coin, an' to take from him an' his a pound o' blood ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... suggestion was hopeless. If the Jews were set on effecting the death of Jesus, they would not give up their right to choose their prisoners to be released, and take at the dictation of Pilate the very man they wanted to have done to death. They clamoured for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed. The cynicism of their choice is palpable. By daring to make it, they show in what contempt they hold Pilate. The governor loses ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... spoke to thee, and it was truly said. If thou slayest this innocent woman, I say unto thee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit from thine ancient tree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will this man take thee red-handed from the slaughter of her ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... headed some one of the many small riots against Rome which were perpetually sputtering up and being trampled out by an armed heel. There had been bloodshed, in which he had himself taken part ('a murderer,' Acts iii. 14). And this coarse, red-handed desperado is the people's favourite, because he embodied their notions and aspirations, and had been bold enough to do what every man of them would have done if he had dared. He thought and felt, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... one caught red-handed in guilt, and in doing so, moved far enough to one side to expose the last remnants of written sheets of paper, which flames were rapidly consuming. A moment more and these were crisp ashes which whirled about the hearth with a soft rustle before they ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... but finally consented; upon which Frankl went away, and took cab for Scotland Yard: his idea being to have Harris arrested red-handed ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... "—caught red-handed with the incriminating papers," shouted an offstage announcer. "Handbills asserting objects declared obsolescent could ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... apartment. Evidently the man was disturbed at his work and, when suddenly surprised, had made the bluff that he was calling on Mr. Underwood. They had got the right man, that was certain. He was caught red-handed, and in proof of what he said, the valet pointed to Howard's right hand, which ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... viewpoint, things began to go wrong. By all the rules of the game, Ashe, caught, as it were, red-handed, should have wilted, stammered and confessed all; but Ashe was fortified by that philosophic calm which comes to us in dreams, and, moreover, he had ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... could be seen in the darkness below. Doubtless the miserable heiress of the Lorringtons had found a grave in the bed of soft, deep snow which surrounded its base. Then, stricken through heart and brain with the curse of madness which had already sent her mistress red-handed to death, Virginie Giraud fled across the lawn—through the parkgates—out upon the bleak common beyond, and was gone. The old priest laid aside the manuscript and took a fresh pinch of rappee from the silver snuff box. "Monsieur," said ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... all down on the paper here," said Detective Ferrett. "We've got him dead to rights. Aim for a goose and you hit a gander. This fellow's a red-handed thug from Canada. They've had the alarm out for him a couple of years. You kids never knew that, hey?" And by way of a pleasantry he hit Roy a rap with his bulging wallet. "We'll measure him up down yonder. The face is enough, but these ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Sir William," explained Lord Clowes, as Howe, in surprise, faced about, "but we have just caught a spy red-handed, and an important one at that, being none less than Colonel Brereton, an aide of Mr. Washington. Bring ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... get along. We'll proceed until we get close to the old mansion, and then some of us will go down to the lake shore, and the rest of us will surround the house. We'll catch the villains red-handed, and I hope we ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... chief; the remaining four conveyed Pierre to the little wood, while the robbers, hearing no signal, did not venture to stir. According to agreement, Pierre Buttel was tried by the archers, who promptly transformed themselves into a court of justice, and as he had been taken red-handed, and did not condescend to defend himself, the trial was not a long affair. He was unanimously sentenced to be hung, and the execution was then and there carried out, at the request of the criminal himself, who wanted the game to be properly played to the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... question as to how near of kin virtue and vice may be. She had never considered how narrow a space it is that very often divides the hero from the criminal, the patriot from the assassin, the gentleman from the ruffian, the Christian saint from the red-handed savage. Her heart was hot with wrath and her ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... what is the use of words when I have had such an example of deeds? I have caught you, red-handed, in the act of giving a millionnaire his conge. In the face of this stern fact do you suppose I am going to try to fish up some germs of manhood for your inspection? As you have suggested, I must ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... paid by the bundle, and they told me this morning lathe would run short before they was through. I knew I had ordered an extra hundred on the architect's figgers, but I didn't say anything. Just prospected 'round and came back unexpected, and caught one of them red-handed. He was tucking a bunch between the ceiling and the upper floor, without even cutting the string. I made them rip off the lathe, and there they were stored thick, a full bundle to 'bout every three they'd ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... once!" cried Benassis, and he made straight for the little wood, urging his horse at a furious speed across the ditches and fields, as if he were riding a steeplechase, in his anxiety to catch the sportsman red-handed. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... I have taken all precautions not To sign my name to any verses wrought By my transcendent genius, yet, you see, Fame wrests my secret from me bodily; So I must needs confess I did this deed Of poetry red-handed, nor can plead One whit of unintention in my crime— My guilt of rhythm and my glut ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... Jefferson Market sits in judgment only on the small fry caught in the dragnet of the police. Tramps, vagrants, drunkards, brawlers, disturbers of the peace, speeding chauffeurs, licenseless peddlers, youths caught red-handed shooting craps or playing ball in the streets,—these are the men with whom the Night Court deals. But it is not the men we have ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... said. "Perhaps you do not know your position. You are not at New Orleans. Here I am both the civil and military chief and this is my own place. I can put you to death as brigands or guerillas, caught red-handed upon Spanish soil." ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... might that man be?" asked Ailill of Fergus. "Indeed, but we know him," Fergus made answer; "the wild, red-handed, [3]rending[3] lion; the fierce, fearful bear that overcometh valour. [4]He is the high doer of deeds, warlike, and fierce,[4] Errge Echbel ('Horse-mouth'), from Bri Errgi ('Errge's Mound') in the north, is the ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... and leaped up the garden walk. The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom he heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold. The audacity of the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry. The Lord had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge, distinctly jubilant. ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... the millions in Harrisburg, nearly a score have died disgraced, or are in prison or exile; and $1,300,000 has been returned to the treasury of the State. Even when those who betray us are not caught red-handed we learn to distrust and then to despise them. They pass their last years in exile, and when their statues are erected in our State Houses they are memorials of shame. Thus we learn the art of living, we ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... impressed them with the conviction that I was guilty of the foul crime which had been committed; for murdered she had been, of that there was no doubt. Branded as a murderess I was borne off to prison. Many thought me guilty. It was cruelly said that I was found red-handed by the side of my victim. But even in prison I sought support, and obtained it whence alone it was to be afforded. As King David, I could say, 'I have washed my hands in innocency. I cried unto the Lord and He heard me.' Oh, my young ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... avenged it sternly, O Red-handed Concobar," Catbad made answer, "by winning the battle over the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... local paper lately, and read of four of our young labourers accused of "card-playing." The game was "Banker," the policeman told the magistrates—as if gentlemen were likely to know what that meant!—and he had caught the fellows red-handed, in some as yet unfenced nook of the heath. That was how they were in fault. They should not have been playing where they could be seen, in the open air; they should have taken their objectionable game out of sight, into some private house, as the middle-classes do—and ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... red-handed, bloody murderers among 'em, too, I kin tell ye," Tom Fish growled. "I got no rest whilst ye was gone, a thinkin' ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the neighbourhood—that red-handed, stony-hearted, necessary man whom the Yankee farmer in that north country hires to do the cruel things that have to be done. He wore ragged, dirty clothes and had a voice like a steam whistle. His rough, black hair fell low and mingled with his scanty beard. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... a sigh was the word, as back on the bed she fell, Nor was there need in the chamber of the passing of Brynhild to tell; And no more their lamentation might the maidens hold aback, But the sound of their bitter mourning was as if red-handed wrack Ran wild in the Burg of the Niblungs, and the fire were master ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... to his chum, as the latter gave him this information. "The Firefly is tuned up for a hundred miles an hour! We'll be there in ten minutes! We must catch him red-handed, if possible!" ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... beauty whose easy complaisance caught a monarch's smile and earned an infamous title. Rapine, murder, lust, oppression, high-handed bullying, servile slavishness in every vile abandonment, have bred up delicate, dreamy aristocrats. Their ancestors, by the two strains, were either red-handed marauders, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... caught him red-handed," said Crosby, "if we'd been five minutes sooner. Lord!" he gasped. "It makes me cold to think of it. The men would have shot him off his horse. But what a story for those women! I hope I'll be there when they tell it. If Ranson can keep his face ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest's brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons' sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that more than once in the last century ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of the most prominent personages of the Revolution, whose infamy will continue to be perpetuated down to generations yet to come, with other of his red-handed associates. He was a Frenchman, though he spent considerable time in Holland and Great Britain, where he practised medicine, having studied the profession at Bordeaux. He made some reputation as a political writer, and in Edinburgh obtained a degree. It is believed that he was convicted ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... moonshiner has changed considerably from that of other days. Then the revenooer (mountain folk usually call him the law) slipped up from behind the bushes on the offender and caught him red-handed at the still. In those days the men who were making had their lookout men who gave warning by a call or a whistle, even by gun signals, of the approach of the law while the moonshiner took to his heels, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... had not apprehended two exceedingly noxious aristos, as he had hoped to do; but he held the threads of an abominable conspiracy in his hands, and the question of catching both Bertin and Madame la Comtesse red-handed was only a question of time. But little time had been lost. There was always someone to be found at the offices of the Committee of Public Safety, which were open all night. It was possible that citizen Chauvelin would be still there, for he often took ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... police as "The Boy Raffles." The same "Raffles" afterwards turned up at Newport, where the girls for several weeks led a life of thrilling interest. "The Automobile Girls" it was who caught "Raffles" red-handed, and who saved Bab's snobbish cousin, Gladys Le Baron, from falling in love ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... Europe that this is not a Camorra act of vengeance. The Starving Cardinal has thousands of enemies; the people curse and groan at him; if he were stabbed by an Italian, 'Oh, another of those Camorristi wretches!' would be the cry. The agent must come from England, and, if he is taken red-handed, then let him say if he likes that he is connected with an association which knows how to reach evil-doers who are beyond the ordinary reach of the law; but let him make it clear that it is no ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... of the vulgar noisy sort of bullies, but a good deal worse. He made the wretched Baby's life miserable with all sorts of exquisite torture. He hounded him on to break rules, and then caught him red-handed, and held over his head threats of exposure and punishment. He passed the word round the house that the boy was a tell-tale, and little was the mercy poor Bateson got either from friend or foe when that became known. Nor did Felgate, in his revengeful whims, omit the orthodox functions ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his corner, and distill their soft words upon him like dew upon the green herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... told, including Cowperwood and Stener. Two of them were confederate housebreakers who had been caught red-handed at their ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Anastasius and myself on the occasion of my insane visit. Officers of the Chasseurs d'Afrique were compelled further to blacken the character of the dead man—he had been a notorious plucker of pigeons during most of his military career, and when at last he was caught red-handed palming the king at ecarte, he was forced to resign his commission. Arabs came from the slums with appalling stories. Even the stolid Saupiquet, dragged from Toulon, gave evidence as to the five-franc bribe and the debt of fifteen sous, and identified the horse Sultan by the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... and the ship berthed; and the three adventurers gathered aft beside the house and waited, with galloping pulses and a perfect vacancy of mind, the coming of the stranger who might mean so much to them. They had no plan, no story prepared; there was no time to make one; they were caught red-handed and must stand their chance. Yet this anxiety was chequered with hope. The island being undeclared, it was not possible the man could hold any office or be in a position to demand their papers. And beyond that, if there was any truth in Findlay, as it now seemed there should ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was inflicted so swiftly and painlessly that they did not seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a force of Swazis burying their hopelessly ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... hearing blood-curdling yells at midday, we inquired and were told that a workman had caught a tramp, red-handed, in the act of stealing his tools. Our informant described him as aged, starved, and infirm, "truly pitiable," and strung up by his thumbs to a beam. The sound of those yells made us fear that something akin to the famous death ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... I thought," said Chester. "Now I am almost positive that the conspirators will gather for one more session before the German advance, if only to make sure that nothing has gone amiss. We can surround the house and capture them red-handed." ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... the burden of human guilt, has once fallen a victim to the Eumenides, cannot, as a figure in a drama, go off on pleasure trips, nor can he go about the usual business of daily life. Fate seizes him red-handed, causes him to see blood in every glass of champagne and to read his warrant of arrest on every chance scrap of paper. And the Comic Muse is even less indulgent. When Aristophanes would mock the creations of Euripides, which are meant to move the public by their ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was unbelievable. Clara's only misgiving during her short engagement was that he would disappear like a dream. She agreed with everything he said; even carrying her new allegiance to the point of laughing a little at her own people: the layer cakes her mother made for the Sunday noonday dinner; the red-handed, freckled swain who called on her younger sister in the crisp, moonlighted winter evenings; and the fact that her ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... dollars of the bank's money and a steamship ticket made out in a fictitious name, it was prima-facie evidence that he had done the job and had the balance somewhere. What would his denials, his protestations of innocence count for? He was an ex-convict, a hardened criminal caught red-handed with a portion of the proceeds of robbery—he had succeeded in hiding the remainder of it ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... a red-handed outlaw, sleeping on the straw of a dungeon. To-day I wake in a royal bed and my varlets call me monseigneur. There are but three ways of explaining this singular situation. Either I am drunk or I am mad or I am dreaming. If I am drunk, I shall never distinguish Bordeaux Wine from Burgundy—a ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of Georgia, "that this is owing to a partial administration of law in meting out punishment to colored offenders. I know red-handed murderers who walk in this Republic unwhipped of justice, and I have seen a colored woman sentenced to prison for weeks for stealing twenty-five cents. I knew a colored girl who was executed for murder ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... of her own cruelties. Some day he would have it out with her when the right moment came. Before he reached the house he had had time to sketch a number of scenes in which she, caught extraordinarily red-handed, was forced to listen to his exposition of the evil of such methods as hers. He would say to her, "I remember that you once said to me, Mrs. Farron—" Anger cut short his vision as a cloud of her phrases came back to him, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... fifteen large mosques and several smaller ones, but the people are as fanatical as those of Teheran are the reverse. Gerome, who had a singular capacity for getting into mischief, entered one of these places of worship, and was caught red-handed by an old moullah in charge. Half the little Russian's life having been spent among Mohammedans, he quickly recited a few verses of the Koran in perfect Arabic, which apparently satisfied the priest, for he let him depart with his blessing. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... fact that another personage in the first part of the same dramatic poem was announced to reappear in the second part as a more important and elaborate figure; but this second part opens with the appearance of his assassin, red-handed from the murder: and the two parts were published in the same year. And indeed, except in "Parasitaster" and "The Dutch Courtesan," a general defect in his unassisted plays is the headlong confusion ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his position for personal gain. What this instance was his informant could not at that moment say—the facts were being carefully compiled, but the evidence was beyond dispute. This autocrat, who talked of principle and honor, had been caught red-handed in the very act against which he pretended to stand; and, of course, this instance was but one of many. Doctor Jekyll could take it upon himself to deliver platitudes upon moral rectitude, while Mr. Hyde gathered in the shekels on ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Bennington had not yet realized. The rest of the West came up to specifications, but this one essential failed. In Spanish Gulch he had, to be sure, encountered a number of girls. But they were red-handed, big-boned, freckled-faced, rough-skinned, and there wasn't a Tam o' Shanter in the lot. Plainly servants, Bennington thought. The Mountain Flower must have gone on a visit. Come to think of it, there never was more than one Mountain ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... red-handed murderer, you," one of them, a black-bearded man, commanded. "An' jest pitch that gun of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... with one of the cheaper aldermen, and he wore a duplicate—in gilt—of the alderman's walk and swagger. He talked politics and reform, but with less emphasis on his ideals and more on the game, which seemed to mean the fun of catching the rascals red-handed and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... The question is whether this Empire, reeking with crimes, red-handed from the blood of Christians in Armenia, a scourge in the past, and an offence to the moral sense of humanity in the present,—shall be permitted longer ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... murder is punished as severely as the doer; and persons accused of the crime are forbidden to enter temples or the agora until they have been tried (Telfy). (d) At Athens slaves who killed their masters and were caught red-handed, were not to be put to death by the relations of the murdered man, but to be handed over to the magistrates (Telfy). So in the Laws, the slave who is guilty of wilful murder has a public execution: but if the murder is committed in anger, it ...
— Laws • Plato
... to push on into the city," Trent informed his ensigns. "Twenty more 'Long Island' men will reach us within three minutes. We are to silence snipers, and kill them if we catch them red-handed in firing on our forces. Above all, we are directed to be on the alert for any Americans or other foreigners who may be in need of help. We are likely ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock |
