"Melee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The crowd rose in an uproar. The base runners began to score. I left my bench and ran across the space, but not in time to catch the Rube. I saw him hit two or three of the Providence men. Then the policemen got to him, and a real fight brought the big audience into the stamping melee. Before the Rube was collared I saw at least four blue-coats ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... make easy the ascent. What course he would pursue upon his arrival he had not clearly defined to himself. That would depend largely upon the attitude of the man he was seeking. The flame of battle, still hot from the afternoon's melee, burned high in the Southerner's soul, for he was not of those whose spirit rapidly cools. Bitter resentment on behalf of Miss Polly Brewster fanned that flame. On one point he was determined: neither he nor the so-called Perkins should ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... moved too. And now down into the somewhat frantic melee of the aroused camp fell a shower of slim weighted reeds, each provided with a clay-ball head. The majority of those balls broke on landing as the Terrans had intended. So, through the beetle smell of the aliens, spread the acrid, throat-parching ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... good stead. Before a rifle or a revolver could be brought to bear on the huge form, Alexis had come to such close quarters with his foes as to prevent the use of firearms. The German leader did draw his revolver, but the melee was so fierce and men were tangled up so that he was unable to fire for fear of hitting ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... stream the colours flying, and frown the features grim, Of your emblem lion with his staunch and crimson[126] limb. Up, up, be bold, quick be unrolled, the gathering of your levy,[127] Let every step bound forth a leap, and every hand be heavy; The furnace of the melee where burn your swords the best, Eschew not, to the rally where blaze your streamers, haste! That silken sheet, by death strokes fleet, and strong defenders manned,— Dismays the flutter of its leaves the chosen of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... accurate kick under the official coat-tails, picked the deputy up bodily and hurled him in a heap in the same corner where T. Morgan Carey sprawled, blinking (for his glasses had been shaken off in the melee) and weeping with ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... induced by some vast clashing of the elements. It seems so outside one's jurisdiction. One is oppressed with a sense of the futility of interference. And this was no ordinary dog fight. It was a stunning melee, which would have excited favourable comment even among the blase residents of a negro quarter or the not easily-pleased critics of a Lancashire mining-village. From all over the beach dogs of every size, breed, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... miracle-play, the first part consisting of a representation of a huge dragon, which kicked, and jumped, and crawled, and bellowed in a manner totally unworthy of that ancient and splendid myth; and the second, of a fierce melee, or succession of combats with spears, shields, and battle-axes. The performances were accompanied by much drumming, and by the beating of tom-toms, an essentially infernal noise, which I cannot help associating with the orgies of devil-worship. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... look around and saw that his captors were very busy. Now if ever was the time to take a hand in the melee. Swiftly he rose. He spoke a ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... front of the smugglers, when they mounted the poop of the Coquette; and the steeled staff on which the lantern was perched, had been struck into a horse-bucket by the standard-bearer of the moment, ere he entered the melee of the combat. During the conflagration, this object had more than once met the eye of Ludlow; and now it appeared floating quietly by him, in a manner almost to shake even his contempt for the ordinary ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... hard, because of the way in which he had been compelled to exert himself in the melee. So neither of them made the slightest move to advance any further, content to ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... claw her way toward the doors of this building, through a throng of men, women, and children, all as excited as herself. It was a scene of wild confusion, women shrieking and wringing their hands and fainting, and men fighting and trampling down everything in their way. In the midst of the melee Marija recollected that she did not have her bankbook, and could not get her money anyway, so she fought her way out and started on a run for home. This was fortunate for her, for a few minutes later the police ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... among its feathers, and they rapidly rose high in the air, and sailed away to the Kuen-Lun Mountains. Here, as they passed near the top of the peaks, another roc made its appearance. The wings of the two great birds brushed together, and immediately they fell to fighting. In the midst of the melee the man lost his hold and tumbled into the top of a tree, where his pigtail caught on a branch, and he remained suspended. There the unfortunate man hung helpless, until a rat, which had its home in the rocks at the foot of the tree, took compassion upon ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... broke into the palace and groped about in search of the queen's apartments. Just in the nick of time the hated Marie Antoinette hurried to safer quarters, although several of her personal bodyguard were killed in the melee. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... appeared on the scene and began to fight among themselves for the possession of the yellow objects. In the melee one old woman ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... lying in the path of the advancing hordes to the neighboring towns, and there separated, crowding into the nearest Caves Voutees. Most of these poor women carried a baby and were distraught with fear besides; the older children must cling to the mother's skirts or become lost in the melee. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... revolvers. I was standing at some distance from the table, and as I made a lunge forward, old man Don was hurled backward into my arms. He could not whip a sick chicken, yet his uncontrollable anger had carried him into the general melee and he had been roughly thrown out by some of his own men. They didn't want him in the fight; they could do all that was necessary. A number of soldiers were present, and while the officers were frantically ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... seemed a hopeless enterprise. Captain Dillon, of Dillon's regiment, marched out and, after hard fighting, drove the Austrians from house to house; but, on reaching a spot where the ground was open, he was attacked on all sides, and for a time the enemy and our men were mixed up together in a melee. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... He's shot! They don't see him!" shouted Tad. He cried out at the top of his voice to attract the attention of the ranchers, but in the uproar, no one heard him. His voice in that mad melee was a puny thing. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... melee, grasping the wrist of the Eurasian below where it was clutched by Gianapolis. Nodding to the Greek to release his hold, he twisted ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... the melee the old man had again got hold of a revolver, and just as Fleck seized him he fired again. The bullet, aimed at Fleck, left him unharmed, but found a mark in Thomas Dean, who with a little gurgling cry, fell forward at Jane's feet. Carter turned at ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... their enemies about the waist and wrestled with them, while some, a few only, for the art does not come naturally to the poilu, dealt swinging blows with their fists, and, driving a way through the Germans, escaped into the passage. It was a melee in which all was confusion, in which shouts deafened the combatants, a pack of struggling, bellowing men, which seemed as if it would fill the place for ever, and which, as so often happens, suddenly burst asunder ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... endeavored to avoid the contagion of the pest-ridden sick. To them Roland gave his horse from preference. Three fell dead from the saddle; he mounted his horse after them, and reached Cairo safe and sound. At Aboukir he flung himself into the melee, reached the Pasha by forcing his way through the guard of blacks who surrounded him; seized him by the beard and received the fire of his two pistols. One burned the wadding only, the other ball passed under his arm, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... decreed, it would be his death. His respect for his fellows was measured by their power of withstanding him, and the man he had the greatest affection for, perhaps, was a soldier, now incapacitated, who had once in a melee succeeded in knocking him from his saddle. At the same time he believed in his own astuteness, not without some reason be it said, and in the back of his mind there was always a certain admiration for the man who could get the better ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... toward the speaker, whose voice had a strong Gascon accent, and saw a young man from twenty to twenty-five, resting his hand on the crupper of the horse of the first speaker. His head was bare; he had probably lost his hat in the melee. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... a short pipe and the other snapping the ash from a scented cigarette, stood aloof from the hurrying throngs on the platform, looking on with the measured interest of those who are in a melee ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... regular war at close quarters, and in the end Tom threw his opponent flat and stuffed snow down his neck. But then Larry came up with a huge cake of snow and nearly smothered Tom, and then a dozen leaped in, and a good-natured melee resulted, lasting for ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... had failed, Mr Braine and the doctor rushed to the assistance of the others, and a fierce melee ensued in the darkness, wherein the fresh comers, who dared not use their revolvers for fear of injuring friends, devoted their principal efforts to keeping the enemy from using their krises, weapons admirably suited ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... work," Billy muttered over and over; and, though he saw much that occurred, assisted by the friendly Irishman he was coolly and safely working Saxon back out of the melee. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... king, "mordieu! am I not the first gentleman in my kingdom? Were they not great battles that I fought in my youth? Forward, then, gentlemen, and I will take the lead; it is my custom in the melee." ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... horn, shrill and impatient, suddenly called the soldiers back to their ranks beside Master Carfax. Robin spied this worthy now; and saw that he bestrode a black horse clumsily—as if armored indeed. Simeon evidently had withdrawn his men from a melee for fear that in it he might not be properly protected. He was seen to be issuing orders ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... The melee that followed was sharp, but very short and decisive. The Sicilian crew fought with the courage of desperate men, but were almost instantly overpowered by numbers. Mariano had singled out the pirate captain as his own special foe. In making towards the spot where he expected ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... between two students, who were making themselves unpleasant, and the proprietor of the place. The next night the students returned in force and demanded free drinks, and, upon their being refused, precipitated a general melee in which clubs were used and even knives were drawn. In the end, the unfortunate owners were chased to the outskirts of ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... the whites, who rushed so recklessly among them; so that for a minute a fierce hand-to-hand fight raged on the narrow strand, and even among the crowded canoes in the water. In the confusion of this melee Christie became separated from his men, and ere he realized the full peril of his position received several knife wounds in quick succession. Staggering under these, he fell, was instantly dragged into a canoe, and ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... at the start in this melee of conversation. Maurice also kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile under his golden moustache, and an attack of coughing soon disabled Gustave. Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn by turn, their volleys, the ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... of raw life for you, Charlotte," Nickols remarked as he went with me through the fragrant night back to Mark's and Nell's feast. "The eternal girl, two-men melee." ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fellow—creature was at stake. So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of the fence, with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Spaniard following with a large brown wax candle, that burned like a torch; and looking down on the melee below, there Sneezer lay with the throat of the leopard in his jaws, evidently much exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel shake now and then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the brute with his bare hands. As ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... affair had ended here, it would have been fortunate; but the bad feeling exhibited on the parade ground was renewed, by some evil-minded person, and the colored population, becoming roused to madness, they proceeded to wreak their vengeance on a company in Stinson's tavern, after which a general melee took place, in which several men were wounded, and it is likely some will die of the injuries received. The colored village is a ruin, and much more like a place having been beseiged by an enemy than any thing else. This is the reward which the colored men have received for their ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... rush: the crash of steel upon steel, the hideous melee, where friend and foe seemed blent in one dense struggling mass; the cries which pain sometimes extorted from the bravest; the shouts of the excited combatants, ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... platform when it is waiting for a great train. At last the porters began to cry, "Macclesfield, Stockport, and Manchester train;" the immense engine glided round the curve, dwarfing the carriages behind it, and Constance had a supreme tremor. The calmness of the platform was transformed into a melee. Little Constance found herself left on the fringe of a physically agitated crowd which was apparently trying to scale a precipice surmounted by windows and doors from whose apertures looked forth defenders of the train. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... for the space of three minutes, and is then to retort and bring up six instances. He is to call the present members to witness, and all are to take one side or the other, so that none be neutral, and the melee will doubtless become general, and we expect that much beautiful latent abusive talent will be developed in this way. But let all this be done with an air of great politeness, sincerity, and goodwill, at least at the commencement, for this, when evidently ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... led by the impetuous captain, hurled itself against Captain Richland's company. The Confederate leader was supported by half a dozen "fire-eaters," and about two score men; and although the charge was not entirely successful, yet in the general melee resulting, the captain and about half of those behind him managed to escape. The others were either shot down or added to ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... Princess called aloud to her damsels, saying, "Who is left in the convent?"; and they replied, "None but the gate keepers;" whereupon she went up to Sharrkan and took him to her bosom, he doing the same, and they returned to the palace, after he had made an end of the melee. Now there remained a few of the Knights hiding from him in the cells of the monastery, and when the Princess saw this she rose from Sharrkan's side and left him for a while, but presently came back clad in closely meshed coat of ring mail and holding in her hand a fine Indian scymitar. And ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... like a panic among his cavalrymen who were pressing forward to flank the Kentuckians; and Sergeant Fronklyn, his face still covered with blood, seized the opportunity of their retirement to the rear to drag the form of Lieutenant Lyon out of the melee, and place him on the bank of the creek which bounded the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... complexion offered by an incipient Don Juan of five years, she insisted that all the spare pastry should be distributed among the juveniles. The division led to blows, and tears which had to be quenched with coppers; while into the melee broke a desolate cry from Joseph, announcing that his lever was a failure. The Prince strode off to the blacksmith's shop, forgetful that he held a teacup in one hand and an eclair in the other. With custard dropping onto the red-hot bar which Joseph ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... goin'?" the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic howl. And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass could plainly be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd damn their souls!" There was a melee of screeches, in which the men were ordered to ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... was a melee. The kid's open torch, stuck on his helmet, gave them light enough, until Gordon could switch on his own. Then the kid dropped behind him, fighting back-to-back. Here, in close quarters, the attackers were no longer using knives. One might be turned on its owner, and ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... the knights detached himself from the melee and rode to her side with some word of command, at the same time grasping roughly at her bridle rein. The girl raised her riding whip and struck repeatedly but futilely against the iron headgear of her assailant while he swung his horse up the road, and, dragging ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this fashion that America was divided between the powers of Europe and the aborigines were dispossessed of their country. The barbaric rule of might from which the paleface had fled hither for refuge caught up with him again, and in the melee the ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... followed and was caught by Still on his forty-five. With good interference he secured five before he was thrown. Brimfield, still working fast, reached the opponent's thirty-five before a punt was again necessary. This time Innes passed low and Freer kicked into the melee and the pigskin danced and bobbed around for many doubtful moments before Marvin snuggled it under him on the Morgan's forty-three yards. From there a forward went to Still and gained seven, and, playing desperately, ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... insure his safety. I am told that what actually happened was that on one occasion his Royal Highness went to the aid of the police, hard pressed by a gang of rioters; and he was injured in the general melee. It all took place in a moment and of course no one had any idea that he would involve himself in it. When he was picked up by the detectives he gave a certain address." Here the Comptroller assumed an air of the utmost discretion. "To that ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... it over, and the teacher hit his own foot against the corner of the platform on which the desk was raised, and stumbled, though he did not fall. From this, the report went abroad that there was a sort of melee in school, and the teacher was flung upon the floor in the scuffle. By the time Samuel found himself on his back, the teacher stood over him with what the young rebel called a cugel (cudgel) ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... exasperated the ultramontanes, and on Easter day, April eighth, they made demonstrations so serious that the scheming commander—Buonaparte again, it was believed—found the much desired pretext to interfere; there was a melee, and one of the militia officers was killed. Next morning the burghers found their town beset by the volunteers. Good citizens kept to their houses, while the acting mayor and the council were assembled to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... struggle ensued, in which blows were given and taken freely. Snap was struck in the breast and in the cheek, but not seriously hurt. In the melee Shep managed to squirm free from those who held him and he quickly ranged ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... begun to sink beneath the horizon; it was the hour in which the Limanian aristocracy went in its turn to the Amancaes; the richest toilets shone in the equipages which defiled to the right and left beneath the trees along the road; there was an inextricable melee of foot-passengers, carriages, horses; a confusion of cries, songs, instruments, ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... braves for every man he could muster at that point with a gun, dashed up and down the old wagon roads along the right of way, a conspicuous target for the Indians. His hat, in the melee, had disappeared, and, swinging a heavy Colt's revolver, which the Indians shrank from with a healthy instinct of danger, he pressed back the hungry red line again and again, supported only by such musketry ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... men who had gone for Andrew were much too infirm to get close to "The Falcon." For with the daylight her work had begun, and she was surrounded on all sides by a melee of fishing-boats. Some were discharging their boxes of fish; others were struggling to get some point of vantage; others again fighting to escape the uproar. The air was filled with the roar of the waves and with the voices of men, blending in shouts, orders, expostulations, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... filled the quiet Ambrose with hot impulse to defend his brother. All his gentle, scholarly habits gave way before that cry, and a shout that he took to be Stephen's voice in the midst of the melee. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... there on the morning of the 9th, not dreaming, I suppose, that there were any Union soldiers near. The Confederates were surprised to find our cavalry had possession of the trains. However, they were desperate and at once assaulted, hoping to recover them. In the melee that ensued they succeeded in burning one of the trains, but not in getting anything from it. Custer then ordered the other trains run back on the road towards Farmville, and the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... disaffection and immured in prison. If I believed the stories I heard on good authority and on most positive assurance, I should put down the number of persons who died from wounds or injuries received during the melee at from twelve to fifteen. Still, long experience has led me to place very little reliance on any Roman story I cannot test; and I am bound to say, I could not sift any one of these stories to the bottom. On the other hand, this fact by ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... after the disengaging from the general embrace, when all had subsided into different seats, and Aunt Jane, who had appeared from somewhere in her little round sealskin hat, had begun to pour out the tea. The first sentence that emerged from the melee ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... off the box. The pugilist rushed in then, cursing them and saying that the man was a gentleman and had given him half a crown, and then some hulking great fellow fought the pugilist and there was a regular melee. Wilbraham was in the middle of them, was knocked down and trampled upon. No one meant to hurt him, I think. They all ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... the bridle of the less enthusiastic Adan, was already far ahead. The boys rode straight into the melee, firing through the smoke until their ammunition was exhausted. Even Adan after the first few moments lost all sense of fear, and following Roldan's example, snatched the gun from a fallen soldier and fired and reloaded until his ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... goal-line, and the touchdown that would give the Gold and Green that supreme glory. One minute to play; Deacon Radford had given Butch the pigskin, and like a berserker, he fought entirely through the scrimmage. But a kick on the head had blinded him, in the melee—free of tacklers, with the goal-line, victory, and the Championship so near, he staggered, reeled blindly, crashed into an upright, and toppled backward, senseless on the field, while the Referee's whistle announced the end of the game, and glory to Ballard. Even then, after ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... but she did not move. Then a new cry of warning broke upon our ears. Turning, I saw a dozen black pirates dashing toward us from the melee. We had been discovered. With shrieks of rage the demons sprang for us. With frenzied insistence I continued to press the little button which should have sent us racing out into space, but still the vessel refused to budge. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by his friends; a handsome young man in knee-breeches and a cocked hat watched the proceedings cynically in the right-hand corner, whilst on the left a big fat man frantically endeavoured to recover his wig, that had been lost in the melee. The advertisement was headed, 'Morton and Cox's Operatic Company,' and concluded with the announcement that Madame Angot would be played at the Queen's Theatre. After a few moments spent in examining the picture Kate said it must have something ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... the suffocating melee would result in the death or permanent injury to some of us, I was at last dragged by a policeman to the edge of the crowd. Although I offered not the slightest resistance, I was crushed continuously in the arm by the officer who walked me to the police station, and kept muttering: ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... factor that had got to short-circuit that end, and Prickles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically that time. He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the melee like—well, like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his head, and a noise ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... society are infinitely more numerous and infinitely finer than those of strategy. Woe betide the rash knight who dashes into the thick of the polished melee without some slight experience of his barb and his lance! Let him look to his arms! He will do well not to appear before his helm be plumed with some reputation, however slight. He may be very rich, or even very poor. We have seen that answer with a Belisarius-like air; and more than one ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... has come down to us from George's school-days is honorable to him as a truth-telling boy. A difficulty arose among several boys in school, and it grew into a quarrel. Three or four of George's companions were engaged in the melee, and some hard blows were given back and forth. Other boys were much wrought upon by the trouble, and allowed their sympathies to draw them to the side of one party or the other. Thus the school was divided in opinion upon the question, each party blaming ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... rain the figure of one horseman slowly grew familiar. She caught fleeting glimpses of him, as he darted into a melee, as he spurred round to find a hotter field. Suddenly her eyes widened, and she pressed a ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... dash in at him with fast, twinkling, short legs. With the thought of it, he was in the air to the saddle. As the black, round mounds charged from every direction, Kentuck let out with all there was left in him. He leaped and whirled, pitched and swerved, in a roaring, clashing, dusty melee. Beating hoofs threw the turf, flying tails whipped the air, and everywhere were dusky, sharp-pointed heads, tossing low. Kentuck squeezed out unscathed. The mob of bison, bristling, turned to lumber after the main herd. Jones seized his opportunity and rode after them, yelling ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... pallid face and brow were covered with gore spots, the evident spatterings from the wounds of others; while a stream that issued from one side of his head attested he himself had not escaped unhurt in the cruel melee. A skirt and a lappel had been torn from his uniform, which, together with other portions of his dress, were now stained in various parts by the blood ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... an exclamation of surprise and anger in Smellie's well-known voice, a single stifled scream from Dona Antonia, and a most unmistakable affray. With a shout I dashed up the path, and in another minute or less plunged into the thick of the melee. Smellie was beset by three of the ruffians, who were slashing viciously at him with long ugly-looking knives, and he was maintaining a gallant defence with the aid of a stout stick, the assistance ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... for the polo had already begun. They saw Caspar Porter's little pony fidgeting under its heavy burden. It became unmanageable and careered wildly up and down the field, well out of range of the players. Indeed, most of the ponies seemed inclined to keep their shins out of the melee. Sommers laughed rather ill-naturedly, and Miss Hitchcock frowned. She disliked slovenly playing, and shoddy methods even in polo. When the umpire called time, Parker Hitchcock rode up to where they were standing and shook hands with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... for the assistance rendered us during our Revolutionary struggle, to co-operate with France in her defence of popular institutions—still, self-preservation is the first law of nature. Mr. Adams saw, that to throw ourselves into the melee of European conflicts, would prostrate the interests of the country, and peril the ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... little hideout; as soon as the shooting started in earnest, they were going to clean out this woods but good. It was going to be a fine barrage, with guns going off in all directions, because it is hard to keep your head in a melee. Esper and telepathy go by the ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... brushing of gowns—filled the hall—ominous to Lane's over-sensitive faculties, swelling unnaturally, the expression of unrestrained physical abandon. Lane walked along the edge of this circling, wrestling melee, down to the corner where the orchestra held forth. They seemed actuated by the same frenzy which possessed the dancers. The piccolo player lay on his back on top of the piano, piping his shrill notes at the ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... apparently two other police, Winnington battled his way towards the tumult in front of St. Stephen's entrance. The mounted police were pressing the crowd back with their horses, and as Winnington emerged into clear ground, he saw a melee of women and police,—some women on the ground, some held between police on either side, and one group still intact. In it he recognised Gertrude Marvell. He saw her deliberately strike a constable in the face. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... enough; half a dozen of the fallen man's comrades instantly dashed into the house, were gone about half a minute, and then returned with a perfectly satisfied look upon their faces, and once more plunged into the melee. No more knives were thrown from that house; but unfortunately the deed, and not the swift retribution which followed, had been seen and thought worthy of imitation, and within five minutes there was scarcely a window within ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... side, some another. The issue may be well foreseen. Swords were drawn. I had left mine in the ante room; Zicci offered me his own,—I seized it eagerly. There might be some six or eight persons engaged in a strange and confused kind of melee, but the Prince and myself only sought each other. The noise around us, the confusion of the guests, the cries of the musicians, the clash of our own swords, only served to stimulate our unhappy fury. We feared to be interrupted by the attendants and fought like madmen, without skill ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... turned a reverse into a disaster. The High Command could be disappointed, and yet pull itself together; the people at home and abroad, full of uncertainties, and with none of the professional man's singleness of purpose, might on the basis of a complete story have lost sight of the war in a melee of faction and counter-faction about the competence of the officers. Instead, therefore, of letting the public act on all the facts which the generals knew, the authorities presented only certain facts, and these only in such a way as would be most ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... unwitting possessor of that very commission for which he had toiled throughout a life of hardship and danger. Until now Wilder had made good his quarter of the deck though pressed by a band as fierce and daring as his own; but, at this fearful crisis in the combat, a voice was heard in the melee, that thrilled on all his nerves, and seemed even to carry its fearful influence over the minds ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... to flight by the victorious entry of Jase himself with his underlings. The girl, snatched from the jaws of death by his valor would henceforth rest under such obligations as could be recompensed only by her favor—but in the melee, her ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... as an opponent because he could be angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulay writes to Mr. Napier in February ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... ever dreading smote her at length. For a messenger came one day, saying that Earl Evroc her lord had been slain at Bamborough, in a mighty melee between some of the best and most valiant knights of Logres and Alban, and two tall sons ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... fully aroused, and, not relishing the fun of being buffeted unmercifully in their beds without resistance, they one and all turned out and, seizing their pillows, joined in the fight. The attack, begun with tactical judgment, turned now into a confused melee. Friend and foe were mixed up in one grand shindy, and for many minutes the battle continued without intermission. Blows fell fast and thick; there was a rushing about of half-clad figures swaying bolsters, and each one intent on the same object—namely, that of ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the melee attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured him in the long chair, where during a feverish attack he had lain so often, ruffling up his hair and puzzling his head over problems of Hebrew theology. Every ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... melee a cab dashed up to the next kiosk to mine, the wheels cutting into the soft gravel; the curtains were quickly drawn wide by a half-drowned waiter, and a young man with jet-black hair and an Oriental type of ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless melee Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... A melee. Passing platform shapes. The darting bolts, crossing like ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse lights as ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... then I stood and listened to the chorus of yells fore and aft, the slip-slip-slip of bare feet, the thud of boots as the Americans ran this way and that. I sometimes since have wondered how I escaped death in that wild melee in the darkness. Certainly I was preserved by no effort of my own, for not knowing which way to turn, ignored by friend and foe alike, almost stunned by the terrible sounds that rose on every side, I simply clutched the rail and was as unlike the hero that my silly dreams ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... never heard more furious shelling, and fear our loss was frightful, provided it was our assault on the enemy's lines. We could see the white smoke, from the observatory, floating along the horizon over the woods and down the river. The melee of sounds was terrific: heavy siege guns (from our steam-rams, probably) mingled with the incessant roar of field artillery. At 3 P.M. all was comparatively quiet, and we await intelligence of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... ferment &c. (agitation) 315; to-do, trouble, pudder[obs3], pother, row, rumble, disturbance, hubbub, convulsion, tumult, uproar, revolution, riot, rumpus, stour[obs3], scramble, brawl, fracas, rhubarb [baseball], fight, free-for-all, row, ruction, rumpus, embroilment, melee, spill and pelt, rough and tumble; whirlwind &c. 349; bear garden, Babel, Saturnalia, donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair, confusion worse confounded, most admired disorder, concordia discors[Lat]; Bedlam, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... way before them and scattering to right and left a break came in the ranks of the opposing force, through which they drove like a living wedge. Then with fierce yells of execration the enemy rallied and the next moment Craven found himself in the midst of a confused melee where friends and foes were almost indistinguishable. The thundering of horses' hoofs, the raucous shouting of the Arabs, the rattle of musketry, combined in deafening uproar. The air was dense with clouds of sand and smoke, heavy with ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... figures, and they were gone, and in their place roared and swelled the Chesapeake.... The sound of the storm became the sound of a battle-cry. He saw a clanging fight where sword clashed upon armor, and artillery belched fire and thunder, and horse and man went down in the melee, and were trampled under foot amidst shrieks and oaths and stern prayers. The boy who had leaned upon the dial fought coolly, desperately, drunk with the joy of battle, stung to fierce effort by his father's eyes. The great banner, blazoned with the Cross of Saint George, streamed in crimson ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... brain that had planned it! Kid Greer, having probably struck up an acquaintance with Klanner during the past few days, had inveigled Klanner to-night into Baldy Jack's, ostensibly, no doubt, for an innocent and casual glass of beer, and in a general row and melee in the dance hall—not an uncommon occurrence in a place like Baldy Jack's—Klanner would be shot and killed. The rest was obvious. The man's effects would naturally be examined, and the evidence of his "guilt" found in his trunk. It was an open and shut game against a dead man! Even his previous ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... them!" shouted Mr Rawlings, in a voice that made itself heard above the melee; and after a brief struggle, the two remaining Indians were secured and firmly bound, although it took all Black Harry's strength to overcome the one he grappled, who turned out to be the chief of the party, while the one Wolf had brought down suffered terribly from ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... person who inquired hurriedly for the Doctor, who, luckily, happened at that very moment to be approaching. The man who called him then gave us the following excited account of what had happened. He said that in a melee between the Americans and the foreigners, Domingo, a tall, majestic-looking Spaniard, a perfect type of the novelistic bandit of Old Spain, had stabbed Tom Somers, a young Irishman, but a naturalized citizen ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... be no necessity for his using it. Silence hung about the sloop, and he had decided there could be no one around, unless, when they clambered over the side, they should discover some poor chap who had succumbed to the provoking gas or else been stunned by a blow in the wild melee that ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... battle in the day would be greatly preferable. In the first place, because it would give an opportunity for the display of his lordship's tactics, and afford the means of taking prompt advantage of any mistake of the enemy, change of the wind, or any other favourable circumstance; while in the melee of a battle at night, there must always be greater risk of separation, and of ships receiving the fire of their friends as well as their foes." It is obvious to every comprehension, that a night action must preclude all manoeuvring, and prevent the greater skill ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... we were getting our beer in the inner parlour, there was a confused melee of voices in the bar, amid which ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... I, whipping old Rene smartly. And in another minute we were thumping and bumping over great paving-stones, too noisily for conversation to be carried on, and getting into a melee of carts, wagons, and horsemen, all bound for Beaucaire. The women were now in great delight, looking from side to side, commenting on the dress of one, the equipage of another, nodding to acquaintance, and crying "O, look!" to each other, when they saw anything beyond common. I had enough ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... young woodsman, utterly unused to the ways of the sea, the next half-hour was a bewildering melee of hurrying, sweating toil, with low-spoken orders and half-caught oaths and the glimmer of a dying fire over all the scene. He was rowed to the sloop with the first boatload and there Job Howland set him ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... melee those men are thinking fast. With every flash of the clock the situation changes for many of them. Some pause, watching, listening; others who have been quiet till now suddenly break in with a bellow, seemingly on the point of punching the noses ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the melee, killed one of the peasants. Instantly the fight began. Peter Nikolaevich was trodden down, and five minutes later his mutilated body was ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... he spoke no word of his occasional uneasiness, nor yet to the old man. Yet one of the very first matters he attended to was the overhauling of the revolvers, which had been rescued out of the melee of the battle and been given to the patriarch, who had kept them with a ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... with the enemy. Rising in his stirrups as the gallant chestnut answered the spur, Walter Peyton looked backward at the men as he raised the light staff of his little banner and shook its folds to the breeze, and the next moment he was close by the side of his chief in the very thickest of the melee. For a moment all was dust and confusion, for Tarleton's veterans were not the men to break at the first onset, and they met the furious charge of the Virginians with a determination which promised a bloody and doubtful struggle. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Derby is this day arrived, and attends the Court this evening, with hopes of the kindest reception. She may be surprised amid the melee?—Ha! said I not right, Master Christian? You, who pretend to offer me revenge, know ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... altogether too small for the officials who had to wash the china there, and they were constantly at odds with my mother for her firmness in resisting their tendency to carry our china and silver to the general melee of the kitchen sink. Moreover, our dining-room not having been constructed with an eye to modern expansions of the female toilet, it happened that, if our table was to be enlarged for guests, there arose ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... scourging whips there flooded through him all at once the fierce memory of the days of old—the days of the Club and the Lash. He snarled. Slowly he loosened his hold of the Eskimo dog's throat. And then, out of the melee of dogs and men, there sprang another man—with a club! It fell on Kazan's back and the force of it sent him flat into the snow. It was raised again. Behind the club there was a face—a brutal, fire-reddened face. It was such a face that had driven Kazan into the wild, and ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... instant Ellinwood jumped in to meet him. There was a swift flying of arms, a pounding of the great fists, and Pete suddenly shot back from the melee and landed on his back in the dirt. One of the Frenchman's great swings had landed. But he was up in an instant and went ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams |
