"Besieging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no use in that," said the hunter, who had followed and posted himself a little in the rear of the besieging party, under the apprehension that the besieged might make a rush out of his retreat, in the smoke and confusion consequent on the firing,—"there is no use in any thing of that kind. The entrance, after the first four or five ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... great number of them armed with guns. Fortunately we had a little warning, and they were very sad Kaffirs that went away next day; moreover, forty of them never went away at all. Just at dawn, when they had been besieging the house for some hours, shouting, banging off their guns, and trying to fire the roof by means of assegais with tufts of blazing grass tied on to them, Jan, Ralph, and about twenty of our people crept down under ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... shaking him by the hand, still besieging him with questions about Selingman. He shook his head good-humouredly and made his ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... after which, seeing that the siege was continuing, and that his delay there might cause some suspicion of his death—and knowing, too, that the fleet was waiting for him, and was quite ready to proceed to attack the pirate, who he was assured would not escape from the Spaniards who were besieging him; and that the Spaniards would, without any doubt, send Limahon, either dead or alive, to the king, as they had promised—he resolved to return to China, with this good news, purposing to come hither again, in order to get the pirate after he should be captured. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... to be haunted. Tacitus[34] relates how, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem, armies were seen fighting in the sky; and at a much later date, after a great battle against Attila and the Huns, under the walls of Rome, the ghosts of the dead fought for three days and three nights, and the clash of their arms was distinctly heard.[35] Marathon is no exception ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... had all necessary provisions, part of which they had previously stored there, while a part they were still bringing from the mountains, which were in their hands. Moreover, by ambuscades they interfered with the Roman provision trains. Hence Tiberius, though supposed to be besieging them, was himself placed in the position ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... seen them yesterday indistinctly from the peaks of Gibel Asoud. We continued our route for four hours, when we arrived at Sockna. There is still a goodly number of palms, notwithstanding the thousands destroyed by Abd-El-Geleel when besieging this place. The trunks of the destroyed palms still remain, and look like a leafless forest in winter, or as if blasted with lightning. But these Arabs, either in building up or in throwing down, never do their work effectually. Tired of their work of destruction, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Accordingly, when Jasper presented himself at Poole's door again that very evening, the landlady apprised him of her orders; and, proof to his insinuating remonstrances, closed the door in his face. But a French chronicler has recorded that when Henry IV. was besieging Paris, though not a loaf of bread could enter the walls, love-letters passed between city and camp as easily as if there had been no siege at all. And does not Mercury preside over money as well as Love? Jasper, spurred on by Madame ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Hardly had it gotten under way when the Galician fortress of Przemysl was forced to surrender on March 22, 1915. This not only gained for the Russians a large booty in prisoners, munitions, and equipment, but also released the great army that had been besieging the fortress. It was thrown immediately against the Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia, who were driven back again rapidly into the Carpathian Mountains. Again Austria appealed to Germany for help. General von Mackensen was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... examining the remaining store, he found to his grief that it could not last many days longer. There were horses and cattle feeding in a sheltered valley some miles away, and had it not been for the besieging bands of Sioux, they might easily have been brought in; and unwilling as he would have been to kill them, they would have afforded an ample supply of food. The fort, however, was narrowly watched, and had any people been sent out to bring in the cattle, they would have been ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston
... was no longer indispensable to him. He had made his great discovery; he had struck out the route to the New World, and now any one could follow it. A number of able navigators had sprung up under his auspices, and acquired experience in his voyages. They were daily besieging the throne with offers to fit out expeditions at their own cost, and to yield a share of the profits to the crown. Why should he, therefore, confer princely dignities and prerogatives for that which men were ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... to decipher a despatch to which I had no key, except I knew from internal evidence that it must be under the War Department code, though written in a different key. It was a despatch from Grant, who was then besieging Vicksburg. It had been sent to Memphis by steamer, and thence by telegraph to St. Louis, the place from which Grant's army drew its supplies. A cipher despatch sent under the circumstances from Grant to me, who ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... was carefully prepared, as if they were besieging a fortress. Each agreed to play the part assigned to him or her, the arguments to be used, the maneuvers to be executed. They decided on the plan of attack, the stratagems and the surprise assault to be attempted in order to compel this ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... courageous war-party at my court suddenly droops its wings, and thinks no longer that we are able to cope single-handed with Bonaparte. Hence, its members have agreed to urge me to conclude an alliance with Prussia, and now come the besieging forces which are to overcome my repugnance. The minister himself was the first to break the subject to me; now he calls the Archduke John to his assistance, and takes pains to be present at the very hour when the archduke arrives here to second his efforts in attacking me. Half an hour later, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... the fortresses which were now besieged by the Allies. Conde surrendered to the Austrians on the 10th of July; Valenciennes capitulated to the Duke of York a fortnight later. In the east the fortune of war was no better. An attack made on the Prussian army besieging Mainz totally failed; and on the 23rd of July this great fortress, which had been besieged since the middle of April, passed back into the hands of the Germans. On every side the Republic seemed to be sinking before its enemies. Its frontier defences had fallen ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... of Brother Hugo, I stood near and succoured him, and though in my stormy life I have had fighting and besieging in Normandy, Brittany, Touraine, and here in England, never have I seen such prowess and such strength as ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... two choes of wine; and that he could play on two trumpets at once; and that it was his habit to sleep on only a lion's skin, and when playing on the trumpet he made a vast noise. Accordingly, when Demetrius the son of Antigonus was besieging Argos, and when his troops could not bring the battering ram against the walls on account of its weight, he, giving the signal with his two trumpets at once, by the great volume of sound which he poured forth, instigated the soldiers to move forward ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the news of which had just been received. The engagement itself would not have been of much consequence had it not proved that the rebels were resolved to fight it out to the last. The Americans, besieging Boston, had fortified a height above the city called Bunker's Hill. General Gage resolved to dislodge them and to endeavour to raise the siege. Our troops, after much hard fighting and considerable loss, claimed the victory, having driven the enemy from ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... be married in the spring, Alice Turner in June. The Turners were always besieging her for a two or three days' visit, and the Turner young men hovered round her. She never seemed to do anything, she never demanded attention, but when she glanced up at them, or smiled, they followed her as the children did the Pied Piper. She might have led ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... had the desired effect of alarming Hasting, who quickly determined to save himself from peril by joining his old countrymen and becoming again a viking chief. He thereupon sold his countship to Tetbold, and hastened to join the army of Norsemen then besieging Paris. As for the cunning trickster, he settled down into his cheaply bought countship, and became the founder of the subsequent house of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... engendered by periods of storm and revolution? Was he simply an intriguer, plying his trade? It is difficult to tell. But however that may be, the established fact is that we find him in England in September 1870 besieging with his projects the entourage of ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... fierce little monsters; but this produced not the slightest effect on the rest, even though the doctor fired and killed another. The padre, meantime, was blazing away, at each shot bringing down one of the peccaries besieging him; but the rest continued as furious as before the fall of their companions. There were a hundred or more, but as they kept rushing about it was difficult to count them. It was also clear that, unless we could manage to kill every one of them, ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... to lift the anchor from the bottom. On shore it means to begin the works for besieging a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... unjust in their dealings with each other, and often barbarously cruel, they were still sometimes actuated by high and noble sentiments of honor and generosity. On one occasion, for instance, when this same Edward the First, who was so cruel in his treatment of Leolin, was at war in Scotland, and was besieging a castle there, he wrote one day certain dispatches to send to his council in London, and, having inquired for a speedy and trusty messenger to send them by, a certain Welshman named Lewin was sent to him. The king delivered the package to Lewin inclosed in a box, and also gave him ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... harm comes to him, the enraged citizens will hang the general's brother. Some parley ensues, in which the shrewd hosier promises for the townsfolk to set free their prisoner and pay a round sum of money if the besieging army will depart and leave them in peace. The offer is accepted, and so the matter is amicably settled. As the worthy citizen is about to take his leave, the general ventures a word of inquiry as to the cause of the town's revolt. "What, then, is your grievance, ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... Ah, but where Men dwell not, but must make a lair;— And Sorrow may not sit alone, Nor Love hear music of its own; And Thought that strives to breast that sea Must struggle even for memory. Day-long, night-long,—besieging din To thrust all pain the deeper in!— And drown the flutter of first-breath; And batter at the doors of Death. To lull their dearest:—watch their dead; While the long thunders overhead, Gather and break for evermore, Eternal tides—eternal ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... Rome the princes found that their father was at war. He was besieging the city of Ardea, which lay south of Rome; and as this city was strong and well defended the king and his army were kept a long while before it, waiting until famine, their ally, should force the inhabitants to surrender. While the army was thus waiting in idleness ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... me more than once, in an angry mood, that if the Parliament went on at the old rate he would teach them that it would be no great task to reduce them to reason. I perceived by his talk that the Court had resumed the design of besieging Paris; and to be the more satisfied of it I told him that the Cardinal might easily be disappointed in his measures, and that he would find Paris to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... show in battle, but yet are not hard to withstand. For consider what has befallen Rome, They took the city when all the gates lay open; but now the Citadel, though it is kept by a small company, they are not able to take. Wearied already of besieging it, they are scattering themselves over the face of the land to gather spoil. Their manner is to gorge themselves with meat and great draughts of wine, and at nightfall to throw themselves on the ground like beasts, without defence or outposts or guards. And now ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... authorities considered it impregnable. It is protected on the landward side by an amphitheater of high hills, which leave to the right and left a narrow strip of rolling country between their lower slopes and the sea. On the east Lapoype commanded the left wing of the besieging revolutionary force. The westward pass is commanded by Ollioules, which Carteaux had selected for his headquarters. On August twenty-ninth his vanguard seized the place, but they were almost immediately attacked and driven out by the allied armies, chiefly English ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... was quickly made, after which suspense set in. Silence and the solitude of the deserted camp reigned unbroken; yet the watchers knew that the shadows held determined enemies, alertly besieging the private car. To prove it, Adair pulled down a portiere, gave it bulk with a stuffing of berth pillows, and dropped the bundle from one of the shattered windows. Three jets of fire belched from the nearest shadow, and the dummy was riddled. Adair ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... north side of the street. In the early part of my sojourn in this city by the Golden Gate I was impressed with this aspect of life here. It was on Thursday the 3rd day of October that I saw a crowd of men of various ages, and boys also, reaching out into the street, besieging the bulletin board of The Call, at the corner of Market and Third Streets. Why are they so deeply absorbed and why so interested? They are reading the news of the victory of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's Columbia over Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock in the great ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... eastward; Chickamauga and Chattanooga%.—While Grant was besieging Vicksburg, Rosecrans by skillful work forced Bragg to retreat from his position south of Murfreesboro; then in a second campaign he forced Bragg to leave Chattanooga and retire into northwestern Georgia. Bragg here received more troops, and attacked Rosecrans in the Chickamauga valley (September ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... Meanwhile General Grant was besieging Vicksburg, which had been well called "the Gibraltar of the Mississippi," and the people, who had become heart-sick of military engineering, began to lose courage. At one time President Lincoln actually determined to supersede General ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... only their vertigo was left with him. Up to that moment he had lived with that blind faith which gloomy probity engenders. This faith had quitted him, this probity had deserted him. All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, he must be a different man. He was suffering from the strange pains of a conscience abruptly operated on for the cataract. He saw that which it was repugnant to him to behold. He felt himself emptied, useless, put out of joint with his past life, turned ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... own, our own right hand Shall teach us highest deeds, by proof to try Who is our equal: then thou shalt behold Whether by supplication we intend Address, and to begirt th' Almighty Throne Beseeching or besieging. This report, These tidings carrie to th' anointed King; And fly, ere evil intercept thy flight. He said, and as the sound of waters deep Hoarce murmur echo'd to his words applause 870 Through the infinite Host, nor less for that The flaming Seraph fearless, though alone Encompass'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... "capture" his bride. He makes a mock assault upon her house, which is carefully closed with locks and bolts against him. The besieging party take bagpipes to while away the time. Much parleying goes on, and every female member of the bride's family is offered to the bridegroom by one of her male relations, who is the chosen tormentor. When she finally does appear the pair exchange sprigs of myrtle or ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... French folk, understood the political and military situation. To restore the confidence of France it was necessary that the Dauphin should penetrate the English lines to Rheims, and there be crowned. She broke the lines, she led him to Rheims, and crowned him. England was besieging his last hold in the north and centre, Orleans, on a military policy of pure 'bluff.' The city was at no time really invested. The besieging force, as English official documents prove, was utterly inadequate to its ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... day? I don't blame the genuine public: the fathers of families did not crowd, nor did they push against anyone, in spite of their position. On the contrary, I am told that they were disconcerted even in the street, at the sight of the crowd shoving in a way unheard of in our town, besieging the entry and taking it by assault, instead of simply going in. Meanwhile the carriages kept driving up, and at last blocked the street. Now, at the time I write, I have good grounds for affirming that some of the lowest rabble of our town were ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... rich with hunt and horse and hound Flattered in the besieging wind's uproar, And the long carpets rose along ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... stirred up the Indians all along the border. In the summer of 1763, while he and the Ottawas and Ojibwas were besieging Detroit, the Delawares and Shawnees were ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... as June, 1863, General Grant was compelled, in order to show a bold front to Gens. Pemberton and Johnston at the same time, while besieging Vicksburg, to draw nearly all the troops from Milliken's Bend to his support, leaving three infantry regiments of the black Phalanx and a small force of white cavalry to hold this, to him an all important post. Milliken's Bend was well fortified, and with a proper garrison ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Centurion one June morning, as the ship lay at dock in New York. He and Aileen were en route for Norway, she and her father and mother for Denmark and Switzerland. She was hanging over the starboard rail looking at a flock of wide-winged gulls which were besieging the port of the cook's galley. She was musing soulfully—conscious (fully) that she was musing soulfully. He paid very little attention to her, except to note that she was tall, rhythmic, and that a dark-gray plaid dress, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... stout sticks in lieu of swords, fearless horsemen whom he could lead through swamp or over obstacles to hold the masked road. The remaining body under the Squire, he thought, might follow the track of the fugitives of the night, and constitute the main besieging force. As to those who should perform the respective duties, apart from the persons named, the Squire suggested waiting till the inquests—which would bring some additions to the local population—were over. He hoped ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... and binding with all the sacredness of religion. They had ever been taught to keep their promises, and a liar was a greater criminal than a thief. Still they had every opportunity afforded them to learn the true status of affairs; independence had not yet been proclaimed; Washington was still besieging Boston, and the Americans continued to petition the British throne for a redress ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... thousand men; and prince Vaudemont, being joined by the prince of Hesse with a strong body of forces from the Rhine, took possession of the strong camp at Masy, within five English miles of the besieging army. The king understanding that the enemy had reached Fleurus, where they discharged ninety pieces of cannon as a signal to inform the garrison of their approach, left the conduct of the siege to the elector of Bavaria, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... another gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci (about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines, the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... agony is condensed into three verses (Jer. lii. 4- 6), in which the minute care to specify dates pathetically reveals the depth of the impression which the first appearance of the besieging army made, and the deeper wound caused by the city's fall. The memory of these days has not faded yet, for both are still kept as fasts by the synagogue. We look with the narrator's eye at the deliberate massing of the immense ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... exempted from pillage, a month's pay to each individual in the Confederate and Venetian camps. The former thirsted for a contest with the landsknechts, but this desire was yet to cost them much bitter sweat. The clumsy artillery of the besieging army was drawn up in the park, outside of the city, under the guard of a hundred picked men, from different corps. It was not yet noon, when the women and the more aged citizens, unsuspected by the foot-soldiers, appeared on the walls and let down scaling ladders over them. The hundred, employed ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... threatened vitality within again asserted itself; beat off the besieging thoughts; and clutched fiercely at some new proof of its own strength. The old man raised himself, and laid his hand on the telephone which connected his room with that ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the Capitoline Hill, which overlooks the Forum, and named after Tarpeia, a legendary traitress, who, tempted by golden ornaments of besieging Sabines, opened to them the gate of the citadel, of which her father was a governor during the regal period. As they entered, the enemy by their shields crushed her to death: Tarpeia was buried on the Capitoline Hill, whereon stood the citadel, and her memory was preserved by ...
— The Twelve Tables • Anonymous
... relieved the Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to realize the condition ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... have appeared preposterous. If Francia resembled the frying-pan, the Chaco to a Paraguayan seemed the fire itself. A citizen of Assuncion would no more dare to set foot on the further side of that stream which swept the very walls of his town, than would a besieging soldier on the glacis of the fortress he besieged. The life of a white man caught straying in the territory of "El Gran Chaco" would not have been worth a withey. If not at once impaled on an Indian spear held in the hand of "Tova" or "Guaycuru," ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the foliage, we have been shivering about for days without exactly comprehending what was the matter. The open fire at once sets up a standard of comparison. We find that the advance guards of winter are besieging the house. The cold rushes in at every crack of door and window, apparently signaled by the flame to invade the house and fill it with chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone. It needs ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... theory on either side. She would not accept it as a fiery, chivalric cause, as the Abolitionist did, nor as a stern necessity, like the Union-saver. The sickly Louisianian, following her son from Pickens to Richmond, besieging God for vengeance with the mad impatience of her blood, or the Puritan mother praying beside her dead hero-boy, would have called Dode cowardly and dull. So would those blue-eyed, gushing girls who lift the cup of blood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... haughtier pretensions in right of their conception than I shall venture to do, under the peril of being supposed to characterize their execution. Two remarks only I shall address to the equity of my reader. First, I desire to remind him of the perilous difficulty besieging all attempts to clothe in words the visionary scenes derived from the world of dreams, where a single false note, a single word in a wrong key, ruins the whole music; and, secondly, I desire him to consider the utter sterility of universal literature in this one department of impassioned ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... came to the ears of the Pope in Rome that King Arthur was besieging Sir Launcelot in his castle of the Joyous Garde, and it grieved him that there should be strife between two such goodly knights, the like of whom was not to be found in Christendom. So he called to him the Bishop of Rochester, and bade him carry word to Britain, both to Arthur and ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... the ghost-dance at Cliff Crest was to be the day of the big event—as the office parlance had it. The ceremonies began at sunrise with a breakfast to which half a dozen of the captains and kings of the besieging host of the Pretender were bidden. It seems to have been a modest orgy, with nothing more astonishing than a new gold-band china set to dishearten the enemy. By ten o'clock Priscilla Winthrop and the Whist Club had recovered from that; but they had been asked to the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... compelled to believe that Sophocles erred as regarded nature; for in cases so transcendent as this Greek nature and English nature could not differ. In the great agony on Mount Oeta, Hercules points the pity of his son Hyllus to the extremity of torment besieging him on the humiliating evidence of the tears which they extorted from him. 'Pity me,' says he, 'that weep with sobs like a girl: a thing that no one could have charged upon the man' (pointing to himself); 'but ever without ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the garrison of Arauco abandoned that place. After destroying these two forts, Villumilla directed his march for Puren, of which he expected to gain possession without resistance. But the commander made so vigorous a defence that he was under the necessity of besieging it in form. In a short time the garrison was reduced to extreme distress, both from scarcity of provisions and want of water, the aqueduct which brought water to the fort being destroyed by the enemy. During a sally made by the commander to obtain supplies, he ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... and three slightly wounded. After a short rest, the force again proceeded, and halted at a small village a mile and a half in advance. A ford was found, and the column again started. Presently they met a portion of the garrison who, finding the besieging force moving away, came out ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... twenty or thirty thousand fanatics, well armed and well supplied with provisions, would be most formidable. It is unapproachable upon any side but the east, and there the nature of the ground (boggy) offers great obstacles to any besieging operations. It is Smith's intention, to congregate his followers there, until he accumulates a force that can defy anything that ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Mexicans who are besieging the cabin," said Ned. "They would shout or make some kind of a noise. We have not heard a thing but ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... be aggressive, and there is no better way of losing what they have won than by being contented with it. We must advance if we are not to retrograde. From I Chronicles we learn that the Ammonites had begun the campaign by besieging Medeba, a trans-Jordanic Israelitish city. The answer of Joab was to lay siege to Rabbath, the capital of Ammon, an almost impregnable fastness, perched on a cliff, and surrounded on all sides but one by ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... year the fort was again subjected to siege, when two hundred gaudily painted savages surrounded it for two days. But owing to the vigilance and superb markmanship of the defenders, as well as to the lack of cannon by the besieging force, the Indians reluctantly abandoned the siege, after leaving a number dead upon the field. Soon afterward the arrival of two strong bodies of prime riflemen, who had been hastily summoned from the frontiers of North Carolina and Virginia, once ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... broke the embarrassing silence by asking the King if it really were true that enemies were besieging them and their kingdom was ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... absence there had been little doing in the Netherlands, save that Sir Francis Vere, with a small body of English infantry and cavalry, had stormed some formidable works the Spaniards had thrown up to prevent relief being given to Recklinghausen, which they were besieging. He effected the relief of the town and drove off the besiegers. He then attacked and captured a fort on the bank of the Rhine, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... belonged to that class of females who are not addicted to travelling, and who prefer stage-coaches of the olden times to railways. They entered the station, therefore, with some curiosity and much trepidation—for it chanced to be an excursion day, and several of the "trades" of Athenbury were besieging the ticket-windows. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... question, which fell like the first bombshell of a besieging army into a doomed town, Louise started. "You ask me," she exclaimed, "if I love Raoul, the friend of my childhood,—my ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is rather better: on the Tagliamento it would appear the Austrians are victorious; and in Poland, where Colonel Marfeld is said to have cut off some Russians, marched on Warsaw, and to be about besieging Dantzic: these latter want confirmation. The French, I fear, have crossed the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... my brain I remembered that a drunken Frenchman named Leblanc, whom I had known in my youth and who had been a friend of Napoleon, or so he said, told me that the great emperor when he was besieging Acre in the Holy Land, was forced to retreat. Being unable to carry off his wounded men, he left them in a monastery on Mount Carmel, each with a dose of poison by his side. Apparently they did not take the poison, for according to Leblanc, who said he was present there ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Monsieur d'Aubigny, besieging Capua, and after having directed a furious battery against it, Signor Fabricio Colonna, governor of the town, having from a bastion begun to parley, and his soldiers in the meantime being a little more remiss in ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... flowers, little lilac trees, obtained with no small trouble, and flowering evergreens, which looked quite gay and pretty ere I left, and may in time become great trees, and witness strange scenes, or be cut down as fuel for another besieging army—who can tell? And from many graves I picked up pebbles, and plucked simple wild-flowers, or tufts of grass, as memorials for relatives at home. How pretty the cemeteries used to look beneath the blue peaceful sky; neatly enclosed with stone walls, and full of the grave-stones ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... kingdom among his children. He then espoused the cause of the eldest son, Sancho, and assisted him in wresting their portion of the kingdom from his brothers Garcia and Alfonso. Sancho having been treacherously slain while besieging his sister Urraca's town of Zamora, the Cid attached himself to Alfonso, humiliating him, however, by making him and his chief lords swear that they had had no hand in Sancho's death. For this, Alfonso revenged himself by exiling the Cid on the ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Nineveh, by a single blow. Cyrus does not appear to have injured her. She remained, under the Persian kings, one of the chief cities of the empire. But she did not give up her habit of revolting whenever she had a chance, and DARIUS, the son of Hystaspes, tired of besieging her, ended by dismantling her fortifications, while XERXES went farther, and pillaged her temples. But the chief buildings remained standing. Towards the middle of the fifth century they excited the admiration of Herodotus, and, fifty years later, that of Ctesias. Strabo, ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... vpon the Parthians, wher thei mette him with fyftie thousande horsemen: there ware of the whole nombre but eyghte hundred fre borne. They are not skylfull to fighte it oute at hande stripes, ne yeat in the maner of besieging or assaulting: but all together aftre the maner of skirmisshe as they spie their aduantage. Thei vse no trompet for their warninges or onsettes but a dromme: neither are thei able to endure long in their fighte. For yf they ware so good ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... this end he marshalled his cardinals and other dignitaries in all their pomp; put himself at their head, and, escorted by an armed array of lay partisans, set out for Rome with the intention of besieging the Capitol. ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... invaders. Four Turkish batteries were seized, and a great number of their defenders were killed and captured; the remainder, after tough fighting during three hours and a half, being driven so far back that much of the besieging work had to be ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... assaults upon impregnable fortifications. General Hooker had succeeded to the command of the Army of the Potomac, still sore under the cruel sacrifice of its brave men in the previous December. General Grant was besieging Vicksburg, which had been fortified with all the strength that military science could impart, and was defended by a very strong force under the command of J. C. Pemberton, a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant- general in ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the Invincibles," he cried, "and I come for help. A strong force of the Yankees is besieging Hertford, and four hundred of our men are defending it. There is no time to waste! They must have help there before dawn, or everything is lost! Which way is ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a particularly vigorous monarch; conquering here and there; persecuting the Christians with renewed energy since Constantine took them into favor;—and of late years unmercifully banging about Constantius son of Constantine in the open field, and besieging and sometimes taking his fortresses. This, you may say, with one hand: with the other he has been very busy with his neighbors in the north-east, the nomads; he has been punishing them a little; and incidentally founding, as a protection against their in roads, the city of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... part in that vast siege of Lille, which the Imperial Generalissimo pursued with all his force and vigor, further than to cover the besieging lines from the Duke of Burgundy's army, between which and the Imperialists our Duke lay. Once, when Prince Eugene was wounded, our Duke took his Highness's place in the trenches; but the siege was with the Imperialists, not with us. A division under Webb and Rantzau ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... garrison, all with two hundred men, swelled by stratagem into an army of thousands. We are told that an officer sent out from the castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous dinner, beheld the besieging army drawn up in street after street, always two hundred men around every corner, as he made his way through the town, piloted by Tordenskjold himself, who was careful to take him the longest way, while the men took the short cut to the next block. The man returned home with ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... scheduled to fall on the flank of McClellan's besieging army Lee moved his men to the assault. The first battle which Johnston had joined at Seven Pines had only checked ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... And, behold, this day are they besieging the tower at Jerusalem, to take it: the sanctuary also ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... to that with which he had so reluctantly parted. Then, hiring horses, they journeyed by easy stages to Huy, a town on the Meuse, six leagues above Liege, which Marlborough, again forbidden by the Dutch deputies to give battle when he had every prospect of a great victory, was besieging. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... arrive at a height where he saw only heaven above and his mountainous domain! "From Italy through the Valais," so a chronicler of his house relates, "at the rumor that a rival German governor of Vaud was besieging his castle of Chillon, he reached the heights above Lake Leman. There he surveyed the banners of the noble army, and the luxurious tents in which they took their ease before his castle. Hiding his soldiers at Villeneuve, ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... alarming news transmitted by radiograph. The Empire was arming itself against its enemies. God would punish them, making all manner of troubles fall upon them. Desnoyers was motionless with astonishment before the last piece of news—"Three hundred thousand revolutionists are now besieging Paris. The suburbs are beginning to burn. The horrors of the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant, and putting on his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly forth; and I saw him, from the window, march along the streets as cheerfully as if he had been besieging Badajoz. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the dominion of Ionia, as well as of the islands in the AEgean. The Lacedaemonians, who had invaded the island at the invitation of the Samian exiles, for the purpose of overthrowing his government, were obliged to retire, after besieging his city in vain for forty days. Everything which he undertook seemed to prosper; but his uninterrupted good fortune at length excited the alarm of his ally Amasis, the king of Egypt. According to the tale ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... he was a clerk; the mother, a garrulous old woman; and a daughter, a pretty blue-eyed girl of about Ralph's age, who assisted her mother to wait upon them. She had a lover, away as a soldier in the army besieging Paris; and the thought that he might be wounded, or taken prisoner, made her very ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... the tomb of the infamous Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the cruel and remorseless right hand of the Pope, with which this fair region was deluged with blood. He was killed on June 20th, 1218, by a stone flung from the walls of Toulouse, which he had been unsuccessfully besieging for nine months. From the south side of the old Cite a delightful view is obtained of the Pyrenees, snow-clad when I was there in April; but the mountain forms of the chain as it approaches the Mediterranean lose boldness and picturesqueness of outline, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... of Carthage, and to have dreaded any further increase of the Roman territory. In 142 Scipio was censor, and acted with almost Catonian severity. In 134, though not a candidate, he was elected to the consulship and put in command of the Roman army then besieging the city of Numantia in Spain. The war, of which this siege formed a part, had been going on for some years most disastrously for the Romans, but Scipio speedily brought it to a conclusion in 133. While before Numantia he received news of the murder of Ti. Gracchus, ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... reached Big George, when a wing of the besieging army swept in through the unguarded entrance and down the dock like an avalanche, leaving behind them the battling officers and the hungry pack clamoring ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... days ago and there are amongst them Jinns as well as men; but we know not what they want, for we have had with them neither battle nor speech." And presently they added, "The name of the commander of the besieging army is Murad Shah and he hath with him an hundred thousand horse and three thousand foot, besides two hundred tribesmen of the Jinn." Now the manner of his coming was wondrous.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... of wretchedness—on that Troglodytes' shore, where in spirit I may wander, o'er those arid regions yonder; but where I wish to squander, time and energies no more. Though a most romantic region, its toils and dangers legion, my memory oft besieging, what time cannot restore; again I hear the shocks of the shattering of the rocks, see the wallabies in flocks, all trembling at the roar, of the volcanic reverberations, or seismatic detonations, which peculiar sensations I wish to know no more. The horses ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... admiral had caused to be built in the mining district of Cibao. Guatignana, the cacique of Macorix, who had killed eight Spanish soldiers and set fire to a house where there were forty ill, was now within two days' march of Isabella, besieging the fort of Magdalena. Columbus started up forthwith, went off to Magdalena, engaged the Indians, and ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... away at the densely foliaged trees. "I cannot feel that. For I know that it would be folly for you to return to meet your death. It would be impossible for you to get across the plains to the nearest place where your people are trying to hold out. Even if you could get there, the army besieging them would take you, and no one there could save ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... besiegers, among whom were two hundred French troops, were too strong to be attacked. He therefore established himself in their rear, attacked and captured convoys, and prevented the country people from bringing in provisions. Several times the besieging infantry advanced against him, but before these he at once fell back, only to return as soon as they retired to their camp. Whenever their horse ventured out against him, he beat them ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... in France had, however, been again succeeded by war. Henry of Valois had already commenced operations in Gascony against Henry of Navarre, whom he hated, almost as cordially as Margaret herself could do, and the Duke of Alencon was besieging Issoire. Meantime, the beautiful Queen came to mingle he golden thread of her feminine intrigues with the dark woof ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... are no events recorded, except that Stow states that "in the 2nd of his reign, he then keeping his Christmas at Eltham, twelve aldermen and their sons rode in a mumming, and had great thanks," but Henry V. had at least one sweet Christmas day. It was in the year 1418, when he was besieging Rouen, and Holinshed thus describes the sufferings of the garrison. "If I should rehearse (according to the report of diverse writers) how deerelie dogs, rats, mise, and cats were sold within the towne, and how greedilie ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... by the French at Ticonderoga, another army under General Amherst and General Wolfe was besieging the fortress of Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton. That army had good generals; and on the 28th of August we heard that the fortress had surrendered. Edmund came out of Rogers's hut. We were waiting ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity; and now, in all the neighboring houses, he divined them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear—solitary people, condemned to spend Christmas ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Banks, then besieging Port Hudson, sent word to the now Rear-Admiral Farragut, that he must have more powder or give up the siege, wherefore the Admiral ordered the gunboat New London on the important service of powder transportation and convoy, and assigning Perkins to the command ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... have told them much more about its species and habits, and no doubt he would have done so had they been otherwise engaged. But situated as they were, with an angry elephant besieging them in the tree, and now for a while interested in observing the movements of the bird itself, Karl was in no humour to deliver an ornithological lecture. He might have told them that ornithologists have differed ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... would run a great chance of falling into the hands of the rebels and being put to death. In the course of the day, he hoped that Major Malcolm, with some troops, or at all events a body of militia, would appear, and that their first task would be to attack the rebels besieging Bellevue and relieve their friends. In that case, it would not be safe to leave Walton without a garrison, as the fugitives, if they found it unguarded as they made their way to the mountains, would to a certainty in revenge destroy it. "We must wait patiently ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... wicker-work scaffoldings, which moved on castors, towards the fortifications. The drums beat to arms, and the bustle of warfare opened in earnest. Smoke was poured out in volleys from shot-holes; the besieging forces pushed forward in masses, regardless of the fire; the moat was filled with the crowd; and, amid much confusion and scrambling, scaling-ladders were raised against the walls. Then was the grand tug of war. The leaders of ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... religious calm which prevailed in the little cottage. I looked at the wretched bed, at the broken windows, the puffs of smoke forced from the fire by the tempest; I observed the helpless despair of the farmer, the superstitious terror of the children, the fury of the elements besieging the bed of death; and in the midst of all, seeing that gentle, pale-faced woman going and coming, bravely meeting the duties of the moment, regardless of the tempest and of our presence, it seemed to me there was in that calm performance ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... silent and waiting. Six thousand feet above the valley floor green and orange slopes run to the edges of perennial ice-fields, while farther away, and peering above these almost inaccessible defences, like tents of besieging Titans, rise three great mountains gleaming with snow and thunderous with storms. Altogether a stage worthy of some colossal drama rather than the calm slumber of ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... XII, killed by a musket ball, when besieging a "petty fortress" in Norway in the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... interview. The short time my brother and I remained together was employed by him in giving me instructions for the commission I had undertaken to execute for him in Flanders. The King and the Queen my mother set out for Poitiers, to be near the army of M. de Mayenne, then besieging Brouage, which place being reduced, it was intended to march into Gascony and attack ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... produced "The Mass of Adrien Willaert," "The Childhood of Montaigne," "Shakespeare and his Family," "Vesalius," "Hamlet," and "Murillo in his Studio." One of his paintings, entitled "The Women of Siena, 1553," shows the women of that city working on the fortifications intended to resist the besieging army of Charles V., and another depicts Columbus first sighting ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... an uproar. Men and women lost their heads and clambered up on to the platform, pressing round the singer, besieging her for a spray of leaves or a flower from the sheaf she carried. Some even tried to secure a bit of the gold embroidery from off her gown by ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... out into the fog, which, however, was lifting a little. He made his way down into Piccadilly, which was crowded with folk, men and women hurrying home from their offices, and besieging the omnibuses—with hundreds of soldiers too, most of them with a girl beside them, and smart young officers of every rank and service—while the whole scene breathed an animation and excitement, which meant a common consciousness, in the crowd, of great happenings. All along the street were men ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... detached on the beach, like huge shot, compared with which the greenstone balls of Mons Meg are but marbles for children to play with; in other cases they project from the mural front of rampart-like precipices, as if they had been showered into them by the ordnance of some besieging battery, and had stuck fast in the mason-work. Abbotsford has been described as a romance in stone and lime; we have here, on the shores of Laig, what seems a wild but agreeable tale, of the extravagant cast ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... like the Cid could not lightly be dismissed, and very soon the king was forced to humble himself, and send messengers to beg his forgiveness. The Campeador was too generous to bear malice, and rode joyfully back, to find Sancho besieging Zamora. And an ill day it was for the king when he resolved to wrest his sister's possessions from her; for one of her citizens, spurred by love to his lady, gained admittance into the royal camp and offered to betray the city. A councillor of ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... informed that Bajazet, the Grand Seignior of Turkey, was on a career of conquest which rivaled his own; that he had overrun all of Asia Minor; that, crossing the Hellespont, he had subjugated Serbia, Macedonia, Thessaly, and that he was even besieging the imperial city of Constantine. The jealousy of Tamerlane was thoroughly aroused. He instantly turned upon his steps to seek this foe, worthy of his arms, dispatching to him the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... throngs of spirits, fairies, and goblins trooped out for revels about the country. The old Druid idea of obsession, the besieging of a person by an evil spirit, was practised by them ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... victors; Estella, Vergara, Tolosa, Villafranca, and numerous other considerable towns, were held by the soldiers of the Pretender; and, to crown all, Paco learned, to his astonishment, that Zumalacarregui and his army were then in front of Bilboa, vigorously besieging ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... of Kona or Goliba since the wrecking of our barricade, but Omar, I was gratified to observe, was stationed at a window of the opposite house from which he directed well-aimed shots at those below. A body of fully five hundred infantry were besieging the house wherein a large number of our comrades had taken shelter, determined to put them to the sword; yet so desperate was the resistance that they found it impossible to enter, and many were killed in their futile endeavours. At length I noticed that while the main ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... officers devoted to the interest of king Philip. Considering the strength of such a garrison, and the small number of Dutch and English troops, nothing could appear more desperate and dangerous than the design of besieging the place; yet this was proposed by the prince of Hesse d'Armstadt, who served in the expedition as a volunteer, strongly urged by king Charles, and approved by the earl of Peterborough and sir Cloudesley Shovel. The city was accordingly ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... her favour. One day, however, during a brief truce of six hours, the Duchesse de Guise and herself, accompanied by several other ladies, having ascended the rampart to converse with such of their friends as were in the besieging army, all the young gallants crowded to the foot of the walls to pay their respects to the fair being whose presence offered so graceful a contrast to the objects by which they were more immediately surrounded; and among the rest came Roger, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Homildon Hill followed the rebellion of the Percies, and the result of the English victory at Homildon was merely to create a new difficulty for Henry IV. The sudden nature of the Percy revolt is indicated by the fact that, when Albany marched to relieve a Scottish stronghold which they were besieging, he found that the enemy had entered into an alliance with the House of Douglas, their ancient foes, and were turning their arms against the English king. Percy and Douglas fought together at Shrewsbury, while the Earl of March was in ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... window). How is this? What! mummers besieging my door all night. Gentlemen, do not catch a cold gratuitously; every one who is catching it here must have plenty of time to lose. It is rather a little too late to take Celia along with you; she begs you will excuse her to-night; the girl is ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... The Russian resources for the defence of Sebastopol, both as to ammunition and provisions, were becoming exhausted, and a supreme effort was to be made, by massing more Russian troops in the Crimea, to inflict a decisive blow on the besieging forces of the Allies. Early on the morning of the 16th of August Prince Gortschakoff attacked the French and Piedmontese at the River Tchernaya. The attack on the left was repulsed by the French with the utmost spirit and with very little loss; ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... possession of the Babylonians. Once more Palestine became a shuttlecock between the kingdoms of the Nile and the Euphrates. Trusting to the support of Egypt, Zedekiah of Judah revolted from his Babylonian master. His policy at first seemed successful. The Babylonian army which was besieging Jerusalem retired on the approach of Psammetikhos II., who had succeeded his father Necho, and the Jewish statesmen again breathed freely. But the respite lasted for only six years. The Babylonian troops returned with increased strength; ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... such fortune manifested itself on that side where Camillus, the life and soul of the Roman interest, was, a great alarm had fallen on another quarter. For almost all Etruria, taking up arms, were besieging Sutrium, allies of the Roman people, whose ambassadors having applied to the senate, imploring aid in their distress, obtained a decree, that the dictator should at the earliest opportunity bear aid to the Sutrians. And when the circumstances of the besieged would not suffer them to brook ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... whole of Lower Germany is astonishingly infected with Anabaptists: in Upper Germany they pretend not to notice them. They are pouring in here in droves; some are on their way to Italy. The Emperor is besieging Goletta; in my opinion there is more danger ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... have been the city of Mansourah, named after murdered Sultan el Mansour, the Victorious, who built its vast fortifications, its mosques and vanished palaces, its caravanserais and baths, in the seven years when he was besieging Tlemcen. And still are its ruins beautiful, after more than five centuries of pillage and destruction. Josette Soubise loved the place, and often came to it when her day's work was done, therefore she was happy showing it to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... striking a blow yet more bold than the march to Reims, and would have attacked the English where they were strongest, and nearest their own shores, namely, at Rouen. The counsellors of the peaceful sort were inclined to waste time in besieging La Charite, and other little towns on Loire-side. But her Voices had bidden the Maid, from the first, to carry the Dauphin to Reims, that there he might be anointed, and known to France for the very King. So at last, finding that time was sorely wasted, whereas ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... down, up and down. He turned his eyes away to the jagged tops of the young trees, to the glimpses of dark fields beyond them, and inhaled the scent of the wet, green things. It seemed to Anthony as if it all were hostile—as though the whole outdoors were besieging this house. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... foreigner and traveller think, who, after having seen no vestige of Beggary in the neighbouring countries, should, upon his arrival at Munich, find himself suddenly surrounded by a swarm of groaning winching wretches, besieging and following ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... this reasoning was in the fact that the besieging army is generally supposed to be four or five times as large as the garrison of the fort; the primary object of forts being to enable a small force to hold a position, at least for a time, against a much ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... allow, but he didn't move a muscle of face or figure. At any other time Joel would have howled with delight at seeing Miss Parrott's man sitting there before the house, and in a sleigh. And it wouldn't have been a minute before he would have been in that sleigh, and on that front seat, besieging that stiff figure to let him drive. But now Joel flew by, dropping the rope, and rushed into the house, and Polly was left to drag David to the door, and call to Mamsie to help lift him off. But she stopped to say ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... commander of the troops, Colonel Hill. After the loss of eight transports and nearly nine hundred men in a storm near the Isle aux Oeufs, at the entrance of the St. Lawrence, the incapable admiral decided to give up the project of besieging Quebec, and without even venturing to attack the little French post of Plaisance, he returned to England, where he was received with marks of disfavour on all sides, and forced soon afterwards to retire to South Carolina. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... destroyed. His warning was not unwarranted, for the two men were obliged to fortify themselves as best they could in the sacristy of the church, where they were attacked at midnight by a body of men, who were determined to expel them from the town. After besieging them in vain for some time, the attacking party left, intending to return by daylight, but the besieged took advantage of their absence to escape and managed to reach Cinacatlan barefoot, where their account ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... times that a warrior should not take advantage of his enemy when the latter had emptied his quiver, but wait for him to pick up his arrows before going on with the fight. And in one tale of old Japan, when one Daimio was besieging another, the besieged party, having run short of ammunition, requested a truce in order to fetch some more—which ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... ferociously, that the wonder was there was any Calais left, and that its low gates and low wall and low roofs and low ditches and low sand-hills and low ramparts and flat streets, had not yielded long ago to the undermining and besieging sea, like the fortifications children make ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... scarcely maintain his own troops; but Genoa was, at that time, of great importance. Our army had been cut in two. The centre and the left wing had retired behind the Var. As long as Massna occupied Genoa, he kept part of the Austrian army occupied in besieging him and prevented them from employing all their ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... command the force at Saratoga. He drew it back to Stillwater, a township about twelve miles down the Hudson, that he might check Colonel St. Leger, who, with 700 or 800 men, was besieging Fort Stanwix, on the Mohawk, and had given a severe defeat to a party sent to relieve it. General Burgoyne, desiring to effect a junction with St. Leger, moved down the east bank of the Hudson to Saratoga, where he threw ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... and some of the women were literally besieging the cart, and threatening the soldiers, who stood between them and the object ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of the old Pharaonic capitals, soon fell, and Alexandria was invested. The open sea behind gave opportunity to Heraclius to reenforce the garrison continually. On his part, Omar, who was now khalif sent to the succor of the besieging army the veteran troops of Syria. There were many assaults and many sallies. In one Amrou himself was taken prisoner by the besieged, but, through the dexterity of a slave, made his escape. After a siege of fourteen months, and a loss of ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... a rich, good-natured woman who had recently published a novel and was anxious to hear it praised, therefore she gave a party. Originally a manufacturer's daughter, she had conquered a penniless baronet—spent twenty years in the besieging of certain drawing-rooms and now, tired of more mundane worlds, fixed her attention upon the Arts. She was a completely stupid woman, her novel had been exceedingly vulgar, but her good heart and a habit of speaking vaguely in capital ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... were Sossy and Minthy intrenched in a Sebastopol which must have cost a good half-hour's engineering, and the terrible Bytes Gridley besieging the fortress with hostile manifestations of the most singular character. He was actually discharging a large sugar-plum at the postern gate, which having been left unclosed, the missile would certainly have reached one of the garrison, when he paused as the door ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... opportunity for revenge. When Nergal-ushezib was taken prisoner, the people of Susa, dissatisfied with the want of activity displayed by Khalludush, conspired to depose him: on hearing, therefore, the news of the revolutions in Chaldaea, they rose in revolt on the 26th of Tisri, and, besieging him in his palace, put him to death, and elected a certain Kutur-nakhunta as his successor. Sennacherib, without a moment's hesitation, crossed the frontier at Durilu, before order was re-established at ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Quaint Old Bird" all the time, and reflected. It seemed a pity to evacuate the position and ring down the curtain on what was, to date, the most exciting episode of his life; but he must not overdo the thing, and get caught. At any moment the noise might bring reinforcements to the besieging force, though it was not likely, for the dining-room was a long way from the dormitories; and it might flash upon their minds that there were two entrances to the room. Or the same bright thought ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... will she overcame the malady in its physical effects, and did wonders in the assailing of its moral source. Her appeal now, as formerly, was to the nobler pride always struggling for control in Nancy's character. A few days of combat with the besieging melancholy that threatened disaster, and Nancy could meet her friend's look with a smile. She put away and turned the key upon her futile scribbling; no more of that. Novel-writing was not her vocation; she ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... XXIV. When Caesar was besieging Corfinium, Domitius, who was shut up in the city, ordered a slave of his own, who was also a physician, to give him poison. Observing the man's hesitation, he said, "Why do you delay, as though the whole business was in your power? I ask ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... ceremonies and so give us information about ancient life. The bas-reliefs which surround the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius bring us into the presence of the great scenes of their wars. One may see the soldiers fighting against the barbarians, besieging their fortresses, leading away the captives; the solemn sacrifices, and ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... white since the day when he had upset the bottle of "Combined Toning and Fixing Solution" into the drawer where they were. Robert waved back, and immediately felt that he had been unwise. For this signal had been seen by the besieging force, and two men in steel-caps were coming towards him. They had high brown boots on their long legs, and they came towards him with such great strides that Robert remembered the shortness of his own legs ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Sevastopol, famous for a battle in the Crimean War. The action of Balaklava (October 25th, 1854) was brought about by the advance of a Russian field army under General Liprandi to attack the allied English, French and Turkish forces besieging Sevastopol. The ground on which the engagement took place was the Vorontsov ridge (see CRIMEAN WAR), and the valleys on either side of it. Liprandi's corps formed near Traktir Bridge, and early on the 25th of October its advanced guard moved southward to attack the ridge, which was weakly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... because the good patriot Don Rodrigo is away outlawed."... "Therefore," the parchment went on, "His Excellency the Presidente through the writer has herewith sent a message to General Pavon of the besieging camp to comply with whatever Their Mercies the Americans may deem fit to require. Further, knowing the temper of Their Mercies, General Pavon is ordered to at once cease operations and leave Their ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the first time in his life. "I was present at the passage, which was bold, vigorous, full of brilliancy, and glorious for the nation," writes Louis XIV. Arnheim and Deventer had just surrendered to Turenne and Luxembourg; Duisbourg resisted the king for a few days; Monsieur was besieging Zutphen. John van Witt was for evacuating the Hague and removing to Amsterdam the centre of government and resistance; the Prince of Orange had just abandoned the province of Utrecht, which was immediately occupied by ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot |
