"Checkmate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It was so nearly a checkmate that de Crespigny went to the sideboard for the silver box of cigarettes, to offer her one and ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... envelope; and then did an extraordinary thing for Robert Halarkenden. He looked at the address in the unmistakable, big, black writing and looked at the girl and stood a moment, with a question in his eyes. The girl flushed. "Checkmate in six moves" was quite enough to say to this girl; one did not have to play the game brutally ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... sort of checkmate, and Lionel stood looking at the servant—as if the man could telegraph some impossible aerial message to his master to bring ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... yet it was pretty plain. The Government declined to accept as a vote of want of confidence in them a majority which was obtained by so dishonest and treacherous a combination as men voting together who were at such opposite poles of thought; and the Government would just checkmate the little game by accepting the 103 members as what the House preferred to the Government ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... and the route to Chattanooga via Willa's Valley and the Chattanooga Creek, open for retreat; and if Johnston attempt to leave Dalton, Thomas will have force enough to push on through Dalton to Kingston, which will checkmate him. My own opinion is that Johnston will be compelled to hang to his railroad, the only possible avenue of supply to his army, estimated at from forty-five ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the disturbed parts of Turkey] it would jump to the eyes even of the blind, and we should debuter into a new policy at Constantinople with an immense advantage[125]." This advice was surely statesmanlike. To support the young and growing nationalities in Turkey would serve, not only to checkmate the supposed aggressive designs of Russia, but also to array on the side of Britain the progressive forces of the East. To rely on the Turk was to rely on a moribund creature. It was even worse. It implied an indirect encouragement to the "sick man" to enter on a strife for which he was ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... of theirs—and all the consequences flowing from it—collided with the efforts of free nations to build a just and peaceful world. The "cold war" between the communists and the free world is nothing more or less than the Soviet attempt to checkmate and defeat our peaceful purposes, in furtherance ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Southwestern Division of the Pullman system, with head-quarters at St. Louis. In those days every session of the Colorado legislature saw its anti-Pullman rate reduction bill, which Wickersham, as I shall call him, because that is not his name, was commissioned to checkmate, strangle, or make away with in committee by the aid of annual passes, champagne, and the mysterious potency of the national bank-note. As was remarked by E.D. Cowen, to whose notes I am indebted for refreshing my memory of Field's tales, Wickersham never failed in generalship, principally ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Check and Checkmate.—The King is said to be in check when he is attacked by any Piece or Pawn, for it being a fundamental law of chess that the King can never be taken, whenever any direct attack upon him is made, ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... breakfast food company to let me paint a hundred signs in this neighborhood. A hundred, mind you! and that means a big laugh on Forbes, and the good will of the farmers who sell their spaces, and not a cent out of my pocket. How's that for a checkmate?" ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... might be won, then see it lost through folly! Oh, that last game, lost through utter weakness! There was that one move! Why did he not push me down to the king's row? I might have checkmated the White Prince, shut in by his own castles and pawns,—it would have been a direct checkmate! Think of his folly! he stopped to take the queen's pawn with his bishop, and within one move ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... expression, he made ready to follow Anderson with all haste in his own machine. Rosalie hurriedly perfected preparations to accompany him. She was rejoining the house party that day, was consumed by excitement over the situation, and just as eager as Bonner to checkmate the untimely operations of ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... hands, to thrash him publicly, to make Monte Carlo impossible for him. And then, suddenly, he remembered his duty. They were trusting him in Downing Street. Chance had put into his hands so many threads of this diabolical plot. It was for him to checkmate it. He was the only person who could checkmate it. This was no time for him to think of personal revenge, no time for him to brood over his own broken life. There was work still to be done—his ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reply, Bertha, whose game was over, and who had just given an emphatic checkmate to her enemy, strolled across the room. She stood near the piano and could overhear the two; Kitty's eyes met hers, and ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... is issued by this department twice a week, not only to all the police forces of the kingdom, but to the Colonies and the nearest European countries. This is the latest police move to checkmate the operations of the ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... hoped taken measures to checkmate Argyll, Montrose joined the army, which had now swelled to twenty-five thousand men, was the first to cross the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on Newcastle. The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... That was checkmate indeed to Charles who swore all manner of things in his mortification. But it was not until some six weeks later that he learnt by whose agency the thing had been accomplished. He learnt it, not a doubt, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... my eyelids I constructed chess-boards and played both sides of long games through to checkmate. But when I had become expert at this visualized game of memory the exercise palled on me. Exercise it was, for there could be no real contest when the same player played both sides. I tried, and tried vainly, to split my personality into two personalities and to pit one against ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have been a difficult role to play; Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... those that should come after, swift and young,— Those runners with the torch for whom he longed As his deliverers. Had he chosen death Before his hour, his proofs had been obscured For many a year. His respite gave him time To push new pawns out, in the blindfold play Of those last months, and checkmate, not the Church But those that hid behind her. He believed His truth was all harmonious with her own. How could he choose between them? Must he die To affirm a discord that himself denied? On many a point, he was ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... it being gathered in halfpence, and carried on horseback to the appointed trysting-place. But Lawers was better than his word, for soldiers surrounded the house, and made the Macgregors prisoners. The game ended with checkmate, when the duped freebooters paid the death penalty in Edinburgh. Colonel David R. Williamson, the present laird of Lawers, has been long noted for his public spirit and eminent ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... what it could not, a reign that showed that the fall of a great man could be so precipitate that the significance of it could not be felt at the time, a reign that showed that the Pope was something more than the friend of the English throne—he was in matters of Church discipline its checkmate. This was the time that England trembled at the devilry of a king and rejoiced at the sun of a new learning that was slowly dispelling the fog of the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... prompt marriage was the only way to silence the town. This last checkmate, so evidently mortifying, was of a nature to drive her into some extreme action; for persons deficient in mind find difficulty in getting out of any path, either good or evil, into which they ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... nation, has become a sort of hotbed, and seems to force humanity into early bloom. Therefore, past generations must not groan over the sprightly present, but sit in the chimney-corner and see boys and girls play the game which is too apt to end in a checkmate for one of the players. To many of the lookers-on, the new order of things was as good as a puppet-show; for, with the enthusiasm of youth, the actors performed their parts heartily, forgetting the audience in their own earnestness. Bless us! what revolutions went on under the round ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... coming on a job like this, to make my gentleman there disgorge, and not have a mate to back me? Now, then, both of you; it's of no use to get into a passion. You threaten police. I checkmate you with the little tool I have here—my reserve force. There, you had better take it quietly, Stratton. What are a few hundreds to you? I give up the girl and her fortune; what more do you want? As for myself, I only wish for enough to live comfortably and in peace without ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... Checkmate! My poor Tokrooris were in a corner, and in their great dilemma they could not answer a word. Taking advantage of this moment of confusion, I called forward "the buffalo," Abderachman, as I had heard that he really ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... said he, finally, "I knew there had been some mistake, so let's forget that it ever happened. Now tell me about the smallpox epidemic. When I heard what Linn was doing with our men I was badly worried, for I couldn't see how to checkmate him, but it seems you and Doc were equal to the occasion. He cabled me a perfectly proper announcement of Tom's quarantine, and I believed we had been favored ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... supplies at Chattanooga and Atlanta, and can stand a month's interruption to our communications. I do not believe the Confederate army can reach our railroad lines except by cavalry raids, and Wilson will have cavalry enough to checkmate them. I am clearly of opinion that the best results will follow my ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... and mazes of irrigating-ditches. The once open range was now a chessboard of agricultural endeavor, with the pawns steadying ploughshares as they crept from square to square until the opposing cattle king suffered ignominious checkmate, his prerogative of free movement gone, his army scattered, his castles taken, and his glory surviving only in the annals ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Bradshaw at being interrupted just at the moment when he was, as he thought, about to cry checkmate and finish the first great game he had ever played may well be imagined. But it could not be helped. Myrtle had exercised the customary privilege of young ladies at parties, and had turned from talking with one to talking with another,—that was all. Fortunately, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... madame, I may have received a checkmate which will send me back forever to my studio, or I shall have a foot in a new career. Shall I tell you that the thought of the latter result distresses me?—doubtless from a ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... unrivaled. It is so great that it is admirable. We lift our hats to this man. Napoleon gained the field without prejudice; but this man enters the list with hate and prejudice arrayed against him. He plays the pawns of chance with literature, religion, politics, and moves the queen so as to checkmate all adversaries. He flouts love, but to show the world that he yet knows the ideal, he occasionally pictures truth and trusting affection in his speeches and books. This entire game of life is to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... was that every servant was armed with a stout cudgel, and half-a-dozen sturdy peasants of the neighbourhood were enlisted to come, willingly enough, to help to watch and checkmate the rough party from the town, against whom a bitter feeling of enmity existed for depriving the cottagers from getting quietly a ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... mountain more easily and quickly by quartering the face of it on a back-trail, but this would have thrown the wind too far under him. As long as he held the wind he was safe, unless the hunters made an effort to checkmate his method of escape by detouring ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... Shelton, fanatical and dreary; his monotonous voice was suffering and nasal; he was continually sucking in his lips, as though determined to subdue 'the flesh. "You should come here often," he said to Shelton, as the latter received checkmate; "you 'd get some good practice. We've several very fair players. You're not as good as Jones or Bartholomew," he added to Shelton's opponent, as though he felt it a duty to put the latter in his place. "You ought to come here often," he repeated to Shelton; "we have a lot ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... General Feng Yuo-chang was able to telegraph Peking that it was impossible for him to leave his post at Nanking without rebellion breaking out. This veiled threat was understood by Yuan Shih-kai. Grimly he accepted the checkmate. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... some colonists that would yell at the top of their lungs for protection of their interests by the Federation. And then there would be a conclave—with plenty of supervision. Either way, he'd get right into checkmate." He clasped one knee in his hands and ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... Henshaw proceeded, falling back now to his ordinary lawyer-like tone—"is it merely to checkmate what you are pleased to call my designs ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... observation, Leonidas. It's a difficult task to pursue a game to a perfect conclusion amid the distractions of war, but soon I shall checkmate you in the brilliant fashion in which General Lee always ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... seems to have resembled our chess or draughts. The board was divided into five parts. Each player tried to checkmate the other by the skillful use of his men. Games of hazard with dice and astragaloi were most likely greater favorites with the topers than the intellectual ones hitherto described. The number of dice was at first three, afterwards ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... state of unrest and insecurity, to say nothing of a state of war, can ever be to the advantage of capital, and surely it is obvious that if some arch-schemer were using the grievances of the Uitlanders for his own ends the best way to checkmate him would be to remove those grievances. The suspicion, however, did exist among those who like to ignore the obvious and magnify the remote, and throughout the negotiations the hand of Great Britain was weakened, as her adversary had ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they did their best to checkmate him. Bogle thrust out his foot, and when Sparwick tripped heavily to the floor, he ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... princely masters first the humble servants of Ts'i, then buffeted between Tsin and Ts'u, finally invaded and humiliated by barbarian Wu, only to receive the final touches of charity at the hands of savage Yiieh. His first act, when he at last obtained high office, was to checkmate Ts'i, the man behind the ruler of which jealous state feared that Lu might, under Confucius' able rule, succeed in obtaining the Protectorate, and thus defeat his own insidious design to dethrone the legitimate Ts'i house. The wily Marquess of Ts'i thereupon—of course at the instigation of ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... carried out, and the mayor promptly took every means at his command to checkmate any movement of the suspected party. He arranged to shadow him by one of the best detectives in the country, while I agreed to notify him of the contents of any more suspicious telegrams passing ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... "I think that's checkmate for marmzelle," whispered Mr. Dark, with his invariable wink. "Suppose you go back to the Hall, now, William, and draw a jug of that very remarkable old ale of yours? I'll be after you in five minutes, as soon as the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... would murmur gaily, "are we not stupid! Together we can't checkmate him—" They talked a great deal about chess. And how you can't expect to do so much with pawns and how you mustn't mind if you lose them. But how carefully you must guard the queen—or else you'll lose your king—and how if "You just learn a little day by day ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... coast of Africa, near the entrance of the Red Sea. The place is not laid down upon the maps; nor is its naval and commercial importance known; but its proximity to Aden suggests that it may be intended as a checkmate to that English stronghold. In the great island of Madagascar she is founding mercantile establishments whose exact character have not as yet been divulged; but experience teaches us that these enterprises are likely to be pursued with promptness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... reached my ears that Laquedem was himself in Roscoff bargaining for the freight. But we had all learnt confidence in him by this time—his increasing bodily weakness never seemed to affect his cleverness and resource—and no doubt occurred to me that he would contrive to checkmate this new move of the riding-officer's. Nevertheless, and partly I dare say out of curiosity, to have a good look at the soldiers, I slipped on my clothes and hurried downstairs and across ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... at the game, she played one piece against another, skilfully avoiding the checkmate. Pawns might be lost, bishops fall to her hand, knights be unhorsed, but her king was secured. She ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... of a cattle ranch realizes she is being robbed by her foreman. With the help of Bud Lee, she checkmate's ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... unspeakable. He had thought himself invincible, the master of his fellow-men, by the supremacy of intellectual power, and remorseless cruelty. And he was what? A baffled trickster, whose every move upon the great chessboard had been a separate mistake, leading step by step to the irrevocable sentence—checkmate! ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... they like, but I'll checkmate them still,' said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... enterprises! Britain will be forced to content herself with what she can take on the north, and Spain eventually will hold nothing worth having on the south. By the Lord, General Bonaparte fights well—he knows how to sacrifice a pawn in order to checkmate a king!" ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... life 'at this job's been done by them whose little game Wallingford were going to checkmate!" declared one man. "I've allus said 'at he were running a rare old risk. We know what t' old saying is about new brooms sweeping clean—all very well, is that, but ye can smash a new broom if ye use it over vigorously. Wallingford were going a bit too deeply into t' abuses o' this town—an' he's ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... surrendering his place, and now the satisfaction of triumphing over these crooks excited him. He continued to cover the walnut-shell while with his free hand he drew his own money from his pocket. He saw that the owner of the game was suffering extreme discomfort at this checkmate, and he enjoyed ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Kentucky—especially those occupied by Federal troops—made it an excellent point for Colonel Morgan's purposes. He was in a central position here, nearly equi-distant from all points of importance, and could observe and checkmate movements made from any of them. Georgetown is twelve miles from Lexington, and eighteen from Frankfort, the two points from which he had chiefly to anticipate attacks. Although not directly between these two places, Georgetown is ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... This retort was not quite so coarse as that attributed to the Scottish judge, Lord Kames, two centuries later, who on sentencing to death a man with whom he had often played chess and very frequently been beaten, added after the solemn words of doom, "And noo, Matthew, ye'll admit that's checkmate for you." ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... pointing to him as a follower of the gods of grasp and gripe. More disquieting than that, however, were the indications of a new crusade, led by Mr. Mix, and directed against the Council. The Mix amendment, which was so sweeping that it prohibited even Sunday shows for charity, would automatically checkmate Henry; and the worst of it was that money was being spent with some effectiveness. Of course, the amendment wouldn't ever be adopted in toto—it was too sweeping, too drastic—but even a compromise on the subject of Sunday entertainments ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... he had read much above a dozen words, however, his look of vexation gave place to one of astonishment, and that, in turn, to one of intense satisfaction. "Well, I'll be shot! Most extraordinary! Aha! I begin to see light. Yes, yes, of course... Capital! splendid! I know how to checkmate 'em. Only just in time though, by Jove!" I heard him mutter as he read on, at first almost inaudibly, but louder and louder as his excitement grew, until he had completed the perusal of the principal document. Then he turned it over again and looked at the date, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... against an enemy squadron off Meriden. They would yearn passionately to have their ships equipped with apparatus by which it could vanish from a place where it was a target to reappear elsewhere, unharmed, and make the enemy its target. Two fleets equipped with the new device might checkmate ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a proposition he proposed making to a St. Paul jobber the next day. The account of the jobber, a large one, had been threatened by Lewis, the Jew manager of the Edwards Arms Company, the Rainey Company's only important western rival, and Sam was full of ideas to checkmate the shrewd trade move the Jew had made. At the table, the colonel had been silent and taciturn, an unusual attitude of mind for him, and Sam lay in bed and looked at the moon gradually working its way over the undulating abdominal hill, wondering what ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... recriminations," Maraton continued. "I have played into Maxendorf's hands—I admit it. There's time to checkmate him. I'll free every railroad in the country to-morrow, and the coal-pits next ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... British envoy could not be very sure of his position yet. What had he proposed to the Duke? And how had the Duke answered him? What was to be the result of the visit, or would there be any? Selpdorf held the Duke's confidence. He must checkmate England and openly throw his influence into the German scale. No half courses could any ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... thy solemn sadness, To thee abandon my weak devices, To thee let fly all my anxious longings: May thy cool breath to my heart bring healing! Let Death now follow, his booty seeking: The moves are many before the checkmate! Awhile I'll harass thy love of plunder, As on I scud 'neath thy angry eyebrows; Thou only fillest my swelling mainsail, Though Death ride fast on thy howling tempest; Thy billows raging shall bear the faster My ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Robin," Dr. Upround said, as soon as he had well considered this epistle, "I have put up with many a checkmate at your hands, but not without the fair delight of a counter-stroke at the enemy. Here you afford me none of that. You are my master in every way; and quietly you make me make your moves, quite as if I were the black in a problem. You leave ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Miltitz could still have nurtured such a hope. Neither his wish to ingratiate himself with the Elector Frederick, and to checkmate the plans of Eck whom he detested, nor his personal vanity and flippancy of character, are sufficient to account for it. He must have learnt from his own previous personal intercourse with the Pope, and his experiences of the Papal court, that Leo did not take up Church questions and controversies ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... at once what tactics the enemy anticipated that he would adopt, and immediately made up his mind to checkmate them by following a totally different line of action; and accordingly he promptly signalled for his other two captains to come on board. This they did forthwith, and, taking them into the cabin of his ship, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... to disclose the sculptor's purpose. One thing alone was definite and unalterable, to combat the introduction of the Inquisition and the extermination of the Protestant Netherlanders by aid from the Spanish soldiery. The first checkmate given Philip's nefarious scheme was when the States-General compelled his removal of the troops, though at this time William was still Catholic in religion and a loyal subject of Philip, being in no sense a revolutionist. He was easily the first citizen of the ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Even so at this present to me it betide. For of long time Hypocrisy hath ruled as guide, While now, of later days, through heretics' resistance, I retained Tyranny to yield me assistance; But through overmuch levity he thinks himself checkmate With me ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... that Mr. Chamberlain and his noble colleagues had anything but beds of roses whilst pursuing the diplomacy adopted to checkmate the Bond. They had to gain national support without divulging their own proceeding, and were at the same time reduced to a situation which imposed a spartan fortitude in concealing and repressing involuntary perturbation in the presence of an impending ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... the object of the game, namely, to checkmate one's opponent, is of arbitrary adoption; of the possible means of attaining it, there is a great number; and according as we make a prudent use of them, we arrive at our goal. We enter on the game of ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... sufficiently powerful counteroffensive to strike doubt into the confident expectations of the armies of the Central Powers, then the strategical plan had reached a check, which might or might not be a checkmate, as the fortunes of war might determine. If, on the other hand, the stand made by the Allies at this point should prove ineffective, and if the counteroffensive should reveal that the German hosts had been able to establish impregnable defenses ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... checkmate, and Lord Rotherby realized it. There remained him nothing but violence, and in violence he was exceedingly at home—being a member of the Hell Fire Club and having served in the Bold Bucks under ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... had been associated in that hugest of blunders, the Crimean War. Nor was the alliance a less blunder on this occasion. Napoleon's excuse for participation was the murder of a missionary in Kwangsi; but his real motive was a desire to checkmate Great Britain, and prevent the conquest of new territory. In the Opium War she had stopped at Nanking, leaving the pride of China unhumbled, and the state of relations so unstable that another war was required to place them on ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... motionless, studying the board, because of a move she had made. And though, in the end, her king was ignominiously trapped with not an unguarded square upon which to set his poor distracted foot, the memory of those blissful minutes when she had made Bertram "stare" more than paid for the final checkmate. ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... Checkmate! Theodore Stanton is not in this country. Though this points him out as the man from whom Dr. Zabriskie bought the pistol, it does not facilitate my work, which is becoming ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... hadn't slipped away, I might not look and feel so comfortable," said I. "His brother blundered, and there was no one to checkmate my moves." She seemed nearer to me, more in sympathy with me than ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... seemed possible to some to flank the danger by turning far to the right or left, but that would have involved a long detour and delay in arriving home. At the same time, if any warriors were on the watch, they could easily checkmate him by accommodating their movements to his, and continually heading him off, whichever direction he took. He had considered all these contingencies, and felt no hesitation in pressing straight forward, despite the apparent peril involved in ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... He bent forward quite romantically. 'I'm going to be perfectly frank. Of course yah know that when I came on board this ship I came—to checkmate yah.' ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... cut short, it would have been quite Roman," sneered Joseph at his younger brother, once the Brutus of the Jacobin clubs. But Lucien was proof against all the splendours of the royal match; he was madly in love with a Madame Jouberthon, the deserted wife of a Paris stockbroker; and in order to checkmate all Napoleon's attempts to force on a hated union, he had secretly married the lady of his choice at the village of Plessis-Chamant, hard by his ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... heard me in a downcast silence. She seemed for the time to be utterly overcome by the victorious progress of Diane. Finally she thanked me listlessly, and I withdrew, determined, however, if even at the cost of my life, to checkmate the plotters. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... necessary for the company's counsel at Montgomery to give the matter immediate attention. The General Superintendent telegraphed to Watts, Judd & Jackson of Mrs. Maroney's intended coup d'etat, and ordered them to take the necessary steps to checkmate her, while Bangs ordered Porter to avoid ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... finding the answer to his own query. Clancy had come because he had been hired to come. Assuming this much, the remainder was easy. The town gossips had supplied all the major facts of the Raymer-Grierson checkmate, and Broffin saw a great light. It was not labor and capital that were at odds; it was competition and monopoly. And monopoly, invoking the aid of the Clancys, stood to win ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... dastardly influences were at work, but thanks to the sterling loyalty of certain men from among the Dutch population, the plans of the conspirators were more or less known, and arrangements were made to checkmate them. All honour to these true patriots who took a big risk for ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... the beginning, the very thought shocked them. In that lay their safety. Shame is the recoil of God's image from the touch of sin. Shame is sin's first checkmate. It is man's vantage for a fresh pull up. There are only two places where there is no shame: where there is no sin; where sin is steeped deepest in. The extremes are always jostling elbows. Instantly the sense of shame suggested ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... free from conversation. Nobody present felt inclined to be chatty. John Parker was wondering what Miguel Farrel's next move would be, and was formulating means to checkmate it; Kay, knowing what Don Mike's next move would be and knowing further that she was about to checkmate it, was silent through a sense of guilt; Mrs. Parker's eight miles in the saddle that afternoon had fatigued her to the point of dissipating her buoyant spirits, and ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... really a check, almost a checkmate, and for a time Polly quite shook with fury, but after a little she sufficiently recovered herself to reflect that the reins of authority had not yet been absolutely placed in her hands, and it might be wisest for her to ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... they placed the pieces a second time, when he said in himself, "Open thine eyes or she will beat thee." And he fell to moving no piece, save after calculation, and ceased not to play, till she said, "Thy King is dead!—Checkmate." When he saw this he was confounded at her quickness and understanding; but she laughed and said, "O professor, I will make a wager with thee on this third game. I will give thee the queen and the right-hand ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... my companions appeared entirely engrossed by their game, I occupied myself with a book till I heard the ominous sounds, "Check! excuse me, the knight commands that square; you have but one move—checkmate!" ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... some money and they ordered a carload of bread sent in. This bread means some little biscuit sometimes called raised biscuit at home. I think carload means one of the carts in which they are delivered. At any rate, the boys had some food, though not at the expense of the police. On the whole, the checkmate of the police seems surely impending. They will soon have the buildings full, as the students are getting more and more in earnest, and the most incredible part of it is that the police are surprised. They really thought the arrests would frighten ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... and sailors were to take two days' provisions. I had determined to push straight for the Bari islands, south of Regif hill. Should I be able to procure the supply of corn that I expected, it would at once checkmate ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... mere insolubilities. Our own dear Hanover, which (were there nothing more in it) is liable, from that Camp at Gottin, to be slit in pieces at a moment's warning! No drawing sword against a nefarious Prussia, on those terms. The Camp at Gottin holds George in checkmate. And then finally, in this same Autumn, 1741, when a Maillebois with his 40 or 50,000 French (the Leftward or western of those Two Belleisle Armies), threatening our Hanover from another side, crossed the Lower Rhine—But ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the West, Daniel Butterfield in the East personally laid out every detail of this great service, so as to checkmate the Southern design, were the Mississippi given over to ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... to what political power meant and how it was wielded everywhere on earth as well as in Remsen City—the man was no mere dreamer and theorist. He had seen the point no less clearly than had Victor Dorn. But what concerned her, what set her to fluttering, was that he was about to checkmate Victor Dorn. What should she say and do ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... the least attention to anything she says," cried Polly. "Tom and I didn't come here because we wanted to. We only came to checkmate her. I hoped I'd get the opportunity to say a word to you, and now she has given it to me. I just want to tell you that she threw Phil over in perfectly horrid way. She hasn't any right to lay the ghost of a claim to ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... Even that my admirals fail to keep the tryst— A thing scarce thinkable, when all's reviewed— I strike this seaside camp, cross Germany, With these two hundred thousand seasoned men, And pause not till within Vienna's walls I cry checkmate. Next, Venice, too, being taken, And Austria's other holdings down that way, The Bourbons also driven from Italy, I strike at Russia—each in turn, you note, Ere they can act conjoined. Report to me What has been scanned to-day upon the main, And on your passage down request ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... thee napping in this fort of thine!" laughed Mahommed Gunga. "He means to bottle up the Rangars' leader, and so checkmate all of them!" ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... of obtaining the advice and consent of the Senate to the Covenant and to the principal settlements. The intent seemed to be to respond to the popular demand for an immediate peace and at the same time to checkmate the opponents of the Covenant in the Senate by having the League of Nations organized and functioning before the definitive treaty was laid before ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... would, of course, have meant checkmate in the game of invasion, since not a hostile ship of any sort would have dared to put to sea, and the crowded transports would have been as useless as so many excursion ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... Rock discovered the two British vessels lying at anchor under the guns of Fort Erie, a British work on the opposite side of the Niagara River, that there flows placidly along, a stream more than a mile wide. Zealous for distinction, and determined to checkmate the enemy in their design, Elliott resolved to undertake the task of cutting out the two vessels from beneath the guns of the British fort. Fortune favored his enterprise. It happened that on that very day a detachment ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... man to let grass grow under his feet while he hesitated how to remedy his mistake. Immediately he got in touch with Valdez and a few of his party, and decided on a bold counterstroke that, if successful, would oppose a checkmate to the governor's check and would also make unnecessary the unloosing of the State prisoners on the ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... unmixed with apprehension. As Mr. Singleton advanced hesitatingly to the table, I recalled the words that he had uttered in his room at Scotland Yard; evidently his scheme of the game that was to end in an easy checkmate, had not included the move that had just ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Harrisonburg had been due rather to the perplexities of their commander than to the difficulties of supply; and Banks had got clear of the Massanuttons only to meet with fresh embarrassments. Jackson's move to Elk Run Valley was a complete checkmate. His opponent felt that he was dangerously exposed. McClellan had not yet begun his advance on Richmond; and, so long as that city was secure from immediate attack, the Confederates could spare men to reinforce Jackson. The railway ran within easy reach of Swift Run Gap, and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... patient; he renewed his vow to hold the false religion up to ridicule and laughter, thinking, by encompassing the downfall of a single advocate, thus to prove his contention and checkmate its ever-widening influence. He became obsessed by this idea; he schemed and he contrived; he used to the utmost the powers of his Oriental mind. From his vantage-point above the cloister he heard the monks droning at their Latin; his somber glances followed them at their daily tasks. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... from Ethel's superiority, without encountering a second edition in Hal. As she thought of it, and of how she would checkmate Hal's possible plans to make her home with them, she smiled to herself a little ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page |
