"Haft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is one that is nearer and nigher To the noblest of dames than her lover: With the haft of the helm is he smitten On the hat-block—and fairly amidships! The false heir of Eystein—he falters— He falls in the poop of his galley! Nay! steer not upon me, O Steingerd, Though stoutly ye carry ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... violent expansion of Fisette's chest worked palpitating beneath the great arms, and, just ere endurance reached its limit and the trees began to swim before Manson's eyes, his little finger touched the haft of the sheath knife that hung at Fisette's back. The touch ran through Fisette's laboring frame like fire, for he had reached the point where the world seemed dipped in blood. Slowly Manson pushed down his hand, never relaxing his titanic embrace. But the ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... shortest limb about thee, and I prophesy that it will bring thee into disgrace with Father Francis, as once about the black-eyed Syrian wench. But here comes the horn. Be active a bit, man, wilt thou, and just force open his teeth with the haft of thy dudgeon-dagger." ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which had daunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbled with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had told him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of these ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest mates ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... The other Indian at the same instant had fired at the white man and then sprang forward to finish him with his tomahawk. Mrs. Pentry flew to the rescue and just as the savage lifted his arm to brain his foe, she drove her hunting knife to the haft into his spine. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Yussef, came to revenge him, but he knew not with whom he had to deal. Bishop Hieronymo led the right wing, and made havoc in the ranks of the foe. "The bishop pricked forward," we are told. "Two Moors he slew with the first two thrusts of his lance; the haft broke and he laid hold on his sword. God! how well the bishop fought. He slew two with the lance and five with the sword. The ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... ask his name, however, for in one hand he carried a weapon such as had seldom seen the light since powder had come to Ireland. It was an ax, some five feet from haft to helve; double-bladed, each blade eight inches long, curved back slightly, and two inches thick by twice as much wide. The edges, which came down sharply from the thickness, were not overkeen, and were not meant to be so. ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the King's Oak into billets to heat a brown baker's oven; and we will dispark your park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, neither shall you have any portion thereof, whether in neck or haunch. Ye shall not haft a ten-penny knife with the horns thereof, neither shall ye cut a pair of breeches out of the hide, for all ye be cutlers and glovers; and ye shall have no comfort or support neither from the sequestered traitor Henry Lee, who called himself ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... rested his hand on the dead earl's chest he touched the haft of the weapon that had worked this cruel deed. He knew the knife and guessed how all had happened. He grasped the handle in his fingers and tried to withdraw the long blade; but the blood gushed out from the terrible wound, and the lad grew faint ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... his forehead. About twenty Mexicans, dead and dying, were lying at his feet. The juggler was also there dead. With one hand he was clenching the hair of a dead Mexican, while with the other he had driven his knife to the haft in the ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... in with the haft of the boat-hook, until he could stretch down and seize upon the collar of the man's coat. As the Irish lad was brawny and nerved just then to mighty deeds, he managed to hoist the fellow into ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... of a curved, handle, and in usually being sharp on both edges instead of only on one. These are made in various sizes (Fig. 46, a, b), and the blades flat, curved on the flat, or curved at an angle with the edges of the haft. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the form of a rude rope, he tied it loosely around his leg, just above the ankle. Then he thrust his knife between the improvised rope and the leg, forming a crude tourniquet. He twisted the knife until tears of pain formed in his eyes. Then he fastened the knife by tucking the haft under the rope. His movements had been very deliberate, but sure, and in a few minutes he hobbled to his pony ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he was not going to be able to escape the hug, and he placed the haft of the knife against his own breast, with the point directed toward ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... but the iron-pointed one is needed when the animal's head alone is above the water or the ice. Both are cleverly put together with wood, bone, and thongs, so arranged that when necessary head and haft easily come apart. ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... Dudgeon-haft, and crab-tree face, With bills and staues had scar'd hir from the place; And now she was compel'd, for Sanctuarie, To flye unto a house ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash
... things that rang Against his pavement, cast his lance aside, And doffed his helm: and then there fluttered in, Half-bold, half-frighted, with dilated eyes, A tribe of women, dressed in many hues, And mingled with the spearmen: and Earl Doorm Struck with a knife's haft hard against the board, And called for flesh and wine to feed his spears. And men brought in whole hogs and quarter beeves, And all the hall was dim with steam of flesh: And none spake word, but all sat down at once, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... be applied to a number of uses, and among others it may be readily converted into a haft or handle for any kind of tailed or shanked tool, such as files, wrenches, olive bits, chisels, or screwdrivers, and may also serve as pincers or nippers. It is ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... the physiological conventionalism that gradations of birth, gentle or mean, show themselves primarily in the form of this member. Nothing but a cast of the die of destiny had decided that the girl should handle the tool; and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash haft might have skilfully guided the pencil or swept the string, had they only been set to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... confined. They shout for joy! and now on her alone Their fury falls, and all their darts are thrown. 170 Their lances spent, one, bolder than the rest, With his broad sword provoked the sluggish beast; Her oily side devours both blade and haft, And there his steel the bold Bermudan left. Courage the rest from his example take, And now they change the colour of the lake; Blood flows in rivers from her wounded side, As if they would prevent the tardy tide, And raise the flood to that propitious height, As might convey her from this fatal ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... was prepared for the prophetess. A porridge of goat's beestings was made for her, and for meat there were dressed the hearts of every kind of beast, which could be obtained there. She had a brass spoon, and a knife with a handle of walrus tusk, with a double hasp of brass around the haft, and from this the point was broken. And when the tables were removed, Yeoman Thorkel approaches Thorbiorg, and asks how she is pleased with the home, and the character of the folk, and how speedily she would be likely to become aware of that concerning which he had questioned her, and which the ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... to whom the unending stretches of choked woodland were an impenetrable cover behind which to move unseen, a shield in making assaults, and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. In the conquest of the west the backwoods axe, shapely, well-poised, with long haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even to the rifle; the two were the national weapons of the American backwoodsman, and in their use he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long, bright blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time round the camp-fire. He slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his hand. He did not speak another word. Nor did he glance at Joan again. She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out. Jim knelt beside the door, ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... inquiry, if there had been on the part of the really able men among us a determination to break the ice; in other words, if theology had preserved the same commanding interest for the more powerful minds with which it affected them three hundred years ago. But on the one hand, a sense, half serious, haft languid, of the hopelessness of the subject has produced an indisposition to meddle with it; on the other, there has been a creditable reluctance to disturb by discussion the minds of the uneducated or half-educated, to whom the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... speak again' it," said Dolly, rather startled by Silas's knowledge on this head; "but you see I'm no scholard, and I'm slow at catching the words. My husband says I'm allays like as if I was putting the haft for the handle—that's what he says—for he's very sharp, God help him. But it was awk'ard calling your little sister by such a hard name, when you'd got nothing big to say, like—wasn't ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... women round," roared Bolle, "and strike home for Foterell, strike home for Harflete! Ah, priest's dog, in the King's name—this!" and the axe sank up to the haft into the breast of the captain who had told Cicely that she would be warm enough that ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt: They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... the ghastly souvenir and bent over it. A fine bit of Oriental workmanship that any museum might have valued; the haft was of silver, exquisitely chased, the blade was straight and slender, narrowing to a needlelike point, so that it belonged rather to the stiletto type than the dagger. An inscription ran lengthwise down the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... make a good voyageur," Thirlwell remarked. "For one thing, you're determined; I saw you wince once or twice and imagine the paddle-haft hurt." ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... snowshoes and began to run. He held the axe in his hand, gripped near the haft. A couple of hundred yards, perhaps, lay between him and camp, which was just over the brow of a small hill. The bushes flew past as he swung to his stride. Never had he skimmed the crust faster, but his feet seemed to be weighted with ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... little fairy woman who gave him the water-dress, and crystal helmet, and shining spear on the banks of the Boyne, slid into his room, and she placed beside his couch a silver helmet and a silver shield. And she rubbed the helmet, and the shield, and the blue blade and haft of his spear with the juice of the red rowan berries, and she let a drop fall upon his face and hands, and then she slid out as ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... prominent and injected with bile. There was something excessive, almost fanatical, in his devotion to his "white lord." He was inseparable from Jim like a morose shadow. On state occasions he would tread on his master's heels, one hand on the haft of his kriss, keeping the common people at a distance by his truculent brooding glances. Jim had made him the headman of his establishment, and all Patusan respected and courted him as a person of much influence. At ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... broken sword All the long night through While I keep watch and ward! Then—the red fight through, Bless the wrenched haft for me, Christ, King ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... commanded. The majority had some private revenge to satisfy after the public welfare had been served. We met one old man in a frenzy, covered with blood from his white beard to his boots, his arms bare to his shoulders, his knife dripping from haft ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... given it to Fred Munson when he was left alone with the mustang. So, as he had nothing but his knife, he placed his hand upon the haft, glaring defiantly at his enemies, while he continued walking slowly backward, and gradually edging toward the side of the grove. But Apaches were plenty in that latitude, and the business had scarcely opened when three or four warriors commenced a stealthy approach upon the scout from the rear. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... and loosened the net, coiling its folds into one hand, taking the good spear in his other. A bush stirred ahead, against the pull of the light breeze. Rynch froze, then the haft of his spear slid into a new hand grip, the coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... he held in his hand. His eyes seemed to need no further certainty—they seemed gazing to be bound to the dagger; yet still he wished to disbelieve; but the particular form, the same varying tints upon the haft and sheath were alike in splendour on both, and left no room for doubt; there were also drops of blood ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... about till his hand came in contact with about two feet of the haft standing out of the thatch, and he began tugging at it to draw it forth. "Won't come, won't you? All right, then, go;" and catching hold of the bamboo staff with his left hand, he doubled his fist and turned his right into a mallet, thumping the butt, which readily yielded ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... sworn, purged of malice and partial council, examined and interrogate, Depones, That he was a servant to Michael Farquharson in Dubrach, in whose house Serjeant Davies quartered: That he saw the Serjeant have a little pen-knife, upon the end of the haft of which there was a seal for sealing of letters, and he heard the Serjeant say that was the use he made of the said seal: That he saw Serjeant Davies leave his master's house about sun-rising that day upon which he was amissing; that he never saw him since: That about two years thereafter, being ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... over the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran off together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... above the average height—not much under six feet—and the nodding plumes of his crest make him look several inches taller than he is in reality. His tomahawk, which hangs loosely exposed at his girdle, glitters like highly-polished silver; and the hand which ever and anon toys with the haft is long and bony. The dark, piercing eyes seem almost to transfix every one upon whom they rest. One half of the face seems to be covered by a mask, made to imitate the freshly-painted visage of a Mohawk Indian when starting out upon the war path. He is evidently bent upon preserving a strict ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... that if a guy wanted a hair cut all he'd haft to do would be to wet his hair, leave his hat off, and break off the icicles, ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... spat at him, and whipped a knife into his heart. Vincent sobbed, and fell with a thud. In a trice Isoult had struck with her dagger at Maulfry's shoulder. Steel struck steel: the blade broke short off at the haft. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... hast thou clenched upon the occasion with this hand," said the Count, catching hold of it, "which looks as if it had never been washed, save with milk of roses,—and with this childish toy?" pointing to a hammer with ivory haft and silver head, which, stuck into a milk-white kidskin apron, the official wore as badges of his duty. The armourer fell back in some confusion. "His grasp," he said to another domestic, "is like ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... flint to a cutting edge, And shaped it with brutish craft; I broke a shank from the woodland dank, And fitted it, head to haft. Then I hid me close in the reedy tarn, Where the Mammoth came to drink— Through brawn and bone I drave the stone, And slew ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... be frightened did not seem to enter his calculations. He moved with cat-like stealth to the foot of the tiny staircase, and flattened himself against the wall. Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... Whatsoever his blow fended off it crushed; neither shield nor helm endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength could serve. Thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that Hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off the club at the haft, and made it useless. And the gods, when they had lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... I saw this, for I knew I had not struck him as yet. I was drawing my arm from under him to do so, when I noticed that he ceased to resist. But the knife now caught my eye. It was red, blade and haft, and so was the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... though he would have devoured me at that instant time." In the extremity of his terror, he tried to run away from the awful monster; but, as might have been expected under the circumstances, he tumbled to the ground. "I fell down upon my hip, and my knife run into my hip up to the haft. When I came home, my knife was in my sheath. When I drew it out of the sheath, then immediately the sheath fell all to pieces." And further this deponent testifieth, that, after he got up from his ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... at last," said Boots, as he took the axe, pulled it off its haft, and stuffed both head and haft into ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... yielded beneath the glinting blades, and went on down river again, but Nasmyth, who felt the axe-haft slip in his greasy hands, did not try to lead. It was sufficient if he could keep pace with the rest of the wood-choppers, which was, after all, a thing most men, reared as he had been, would certainly not have done. The lust ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... sanctimonious look, Sir, with his "secret errand unto thee," and his "message from God unto thee," and then pulls out his hidden knife with that unsuspected left hand of his,—(the little gentleman lifted his clenched left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,)—and runs it, blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with these fellows, Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, if you were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions are not attacked is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... hand, "look thee at it! Tha niver wants ter shake hands wi' a hand like that, does ter? There's too much pick-haft and ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... ground with the packing it had contained, and then with an oath Vasilici drew himself to his full height, one hand upon the haft of his knife ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... sound; and I came instant to a possessing of my senses; and I knew that the mighty Voice of the Home-Call did go howling across the Night. And, swift and silent, I slid the cloak from about me, and took the haft of that wondrous Diskos into ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... furious Heart of the fire. Raked with me, prized with me, Till on a sudden Besparked and encircled With Welsh or with Wallsend, Shattering, battering They drew me away. Others in rivalry, Thinking to better The previous performance, Seized me again; Pushed with a leverage Hard on the haft of me, Till with the shocks Sank the red fire, Shivered and sank Subdued into blackness. That is my Toil; I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... a loss for words, and sent his knife whirling into the air where it spun at an alarming rate. I edged my chair nearer the door, but the potato-peeler, suddenly standing upright, caught the weapon by the haft as it circled and bent ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... gather all the precious relics up, The golden buttons chased with wondrous craft, The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup, The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft. Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these Unnumbered long-forgotten histories, The deeds heroic of this mighty man, On whom once more the living daylight beams, To shame our littleness, to mock our dreams, And the abyss of centuries ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... seated in a sea-green dressing-gown ornamented by many pretty devices in lace of priceless fabric, which had taken a coffee tint by reason of its age. A book was lying on her knees, and she was toying with an ivory paper-knife which had its haft in a silver embossed rhinoceros tooth. She nodded Paul to a chair which had ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... for the Tarnkappe. The blood gushed from Siegfried's mouth. But he sprang up swiftly, and took the spear that she had shot through his buckler, and threw it back again with a great force. He thought, "I will not slay so fair a maiden," and he turned the spear, and hurled it wit the haft loud against her harness. From her mail, also, the sparks flew as on the wind, for Siegmund's child threw mightily; and her strength failed before the blow. King Gunther, I ween, had never done ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... the knife by the haft in the right hand, and the chip of wood in his left. The point of the knife was towards the white ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... who had removed his armor had not been foolish enough to remove his weapons too; no sane man did that in hostile territory. His hand went to the haft of the blade at ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... red-yew, furnished with a crooked hand-grip of gold, and pointed with shining bronze, and where the bronze met the timber there was a circlet of diamond of the diamonds of Banba. He had also a short-handled scourge with a haft of walrus tooth, and the rope, cord, and lash of that scourge were made of delicate and delicately-twisted thread of copper. This equipment was the equipment of a proved charioteer; the apprentices wore only grey capes with white fringes, fastened ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... The latter is not known to have been hafted, and its working edges were at the pointed end; whereas in Neolithic times the implement had become an axe in the modern sense, with the pointed end inserted in a haft, and the cutting edge removed to the broader end. There are many other Neolithic types, used with or without a haft, and only a small proportion were ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... condottiere from the loyal soldier. Let the navigation-laws be enforced first of all, and see that the due proportion of the crews of every ship be native-born. Let the custom-house protections be no longer the farce they are,—where a man who talks of "awlin haft the main tack" is set down as a native of Martha's Vineyard, and his messmate, who couldn't say "peas" without betraying County Cork, is permitted to hail from the interior of Pennsylvania. Let the ship-owners combine (it is for their interest) to do ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... sword that possessed excellent qualities as being ornamented with gold, and the hilt is the part of the sword that naturally lends itself to ornamentation. Other examples of richly ornamented swords are King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, whose "pommel and haft were all of precious stones";[99] Roland's sword, Durendal, which had a golden hilt;[100] and the sword of Frothi II, which also ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... out into the garden, and to a tangled heap lying in the moonlight, on the edge of the long grass. The slave had fallen on top of his master; one leg lay swathed and twisted; one black hand had but partially relaxed upon the haft of a knife (the knife) that stood up hilt-deep in a blacker heart. And in the hand of Santos was still the revolver (my Deane and Adams) which had sent its last ball ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... soldiers, one with the haft of a blood-stained knife between his teeth, had mutilated horribly a living girl. Little Papeete had been decapitated just where his skull lay now; the shrieks and wails of the tortured tore the sky above Berselius; but Adams heard nothing and saw ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... form, it was one whose shape would indicate a spear-head or hatchet. We present illustrations of each. Forms intermediate between these two are found. Some have such a thick heavy base that it is believed they were used in the hand, and had no handle or haft. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... big fish that lay there. Trembling all over with excitement, I made a mad thrust. Then I yelled, and stamped on the fish, getting all wet in doing so. I beat its head in with the haft of the fork. It rolled over, its white belly glinting in the sun. On picking it up, I was disappointed. It had been dead for a long time; had probably swam in there to die ... and its gills were a withered brown-black in colour, like a desiccated ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... believed to be that which runs through the country of Saguenay. One of the natives, without any sign or question made to him, took hold of the silver chain of our captains whistle, and the dagger haft of one of the mariners, which was of gilt brass, giving us to understand that such metals came from that river, where there were evil people named Agouionda, armed even to their finger ends, shewing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... with its head upward, banged the loaf down upon it, drew a knife from its sheath in his belt, and counted the prisoners over with the point of the blade. He then drew a few imaginary lines upon the top of the loaf, paused to rub his woolly head with the haft, looking puzzled and as if cutting the loaf into as many pieces as there were prisoners bothered him, and ended by making a ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... few instants. The boy propped his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... seemed alarmed at my action. Jacques half rose from his chair, put his hand into his bosom, and I discovered the haft of a dagger. I returned to my seat with tranquillity, and affected not ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, whose pommel and haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, "If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... shining haft and the dark blue blade and the silver shield," said the Fairy. "They are on the farther bank of the Mystic Lake in the Island of the Western Seas. They are there for the man who is bold enough to seek them. If you are the man who will bring them back to the lonely moor you will ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... not equal throughout, but widest at the ends. As a matter of fact, Tollius has here hit the right nail on the head quite accidentally; for the holes are really there, of course, to receive the haft of the axe or hammer. But if they were truly thunderbolts, and if the bolts were shafted, then the holes would have been lengthwise, as in an arrowhead, not crosswise, as in an axe or hammer. Which is a complete reductio ad absurdum of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... was like pale brown marble; twice he half turned toward the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he laid his hand flat on the altar; the executioner unbent his bow and the arrow drooped from the painted haft and dangled there, its hammered iron ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... on each of his fingers. His head was wrapped round by a silken veil or turban, and his body was cloathed to the knees in a cotton wrapper, wrought with silk and gold. He wore at his side a sword or dagger, with a haft of gold, and a scabbard of carved wood. This country is so rich, that one of the natives offered a crown of massy gold in exchange for six strings of glass beads; but Magellan would not allow such bargains, lest the Spaniards might appear too greedy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... barrel, to make up for the drink of which they had deprived themselves. The storm had passed, and the stars were shining brightly. They met nobody on their way until within two or three miles of Gunzenhausen; it was found that the haft of Paolo's axe was deeply stained with blood; and he threw it away on issuing from the wood, as it did not accord well with his present attire, which was rather that of a discharged soldier or a worker in cities than of a countryman. Soon after eight o'clock they approached ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... himself, as he heard those horrible, incredible words, and saw the loathsome smirk on the speaker's face by which they were accompanied, from leaping then and there at the savage's throat, and plunging his blade to the haft into the vile creature's body. But by a violent effort he mastered his indignation and wrath for the present. Planting himself full in front of Tu-Kila-Kila, and blocking the way to the door of that sacred English girl's hut—oh, how horrible it was to him even to think of her ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen |
