"Riddled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the War Office, M. Pgoud, inventor of "looping the loop," who was being congratulated by M. Messimy, Minister of War. He came here to get a new aeroplane, his own having been riddled through the wings by ninety-seven bullets and two shells when he was making a raid of one hundred and eighty miles into German territory. He naturally did not tell me where he went, but simply said he crossed the Rhine with an official observer and ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... the great black snake slowly drawing his long coil across my instep! I dared not move, but gazed down fascinated with the sight of that glistening black cylindrical body drawn so slowly over my foot. He had come out of the moat, which was riddled at the sides with rat-holes, and had most probably been there hunting for rats when my wandering footsteps disturbed him and sent him home to his den; and making straight for it, as his way was, he came to my foot, and instead of going round drew himself over it. After ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... other failed of its effect. The royal postilion, in alarm, rushed forward, when two men, similarly waiting in the road, galloped after the carriage, and both fired their blunderbusses into it behind. The cabriolet was riddled with slugs, and the king was wounded in several places. By an extraordinary presence of mind, Don Joseph, instead of ordering the postilion to gallop onward, directed him instantly to turn back, and, to avoid alarming the palace, carry him direct to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the benches. She listened to what was being said, and started a conversation with her neighbour, some sallow-faced workingman's wife, who sat mending linen, from time to time producing handkerchiefs and stockings riddled with holes from a little basket patched up with string. Moreover, Mademoiselle Saget had plenty of acquaintances here. Amidst the excruciating squalling of the children, and the ceaseless rumble of the traffic in the Rue Saint Denis, she took part in no end of gossip, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... to go back and fight it out!" answered our captain. "All, morbleu lion!" cried the Frenchman, with a shrug of his shoulders, "I know what sort of fellows you are in this frigate, and I would rather stay where I am with a whole skin than return to be riddled by your shot. If my ship escapes, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... iron-gray hair was streaming in the wind, and he was a most conspicuous mark. The Confederates were blazing away along their whole line, yelling like devils, and I fairly held my breath, expecting to see the old General forthwith pitch headlong from his horse, riddled with bullets. But he gave the enemy very little time to practice on him. I was not close enough to hear what he said, but he called to those Ohio men in a ringing tone, and waved his hat towards the enemy. The effect ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... our drawing, they could be hulled with impunity with the lightest weapons. It is true that gun detachments and ammunition will be secure within the internal "crinolines," but how about the other men and materiel between decks? Now, the Dupuy de Lome may be riddled through and through bf a 131/2 in. shell if a Royal Sovereign ever succeeds in catching her; but from lighter weapons her between decks is almost secure. We cannot help feeling a sneaking admiration for the great French cruising battleship, with her 6,300 tons and 14,000 horse power, giving ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... twenty-one shots before they could extinguish the old bull, who had gallantly turned to bay instead of seeking safety in retreat. It was a glorious example of the inferiority of hollow Express bullets against thick-skinned animals. The buffalo was riddled, and many of the shots were in the right place, one of which behind the shoulder would have been certain death with a solid 650 grains hard bullet, from a .577 rifle with 6 drams of powder. The buffalo, finding himself surrounded by elephants, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... ever existed is proposing Radical legislation, the cue of Mr. Chamberlain will be now and then to "go one better"—to use the American phrase; and accordingly here was an amendment from Birmingham which went even further than the Bill of Mr. Asquith. With gentle but effective ridicule Mr. Asquith, riddled the Chamberlain amendment; but for the moment the amendment served the purpose of delaying further ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... stand, the long sought for fugitive appeared in the door, rifle in hand, to charge the countless guns that were drawn upon him. With a courage which was indescribable, he raised his gun to fire again, but this time it failed, for a hundred shots riddled his body, and he fell dead face fronting to the mob. This last scene in the terrible drama is thus described in the Times-Democrat of ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... dressing down they gave me! My face became raw meat, my body a mass of shooting pains. I took it meekly. I tried to guard my vitals, and my addled, star-riddled wits clung to the one idea—"I must ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... main-top-mast being shot away, the Indefatigable unavoidably went a-head. In addition to her former damage, she had lost her foreyard and gaff, and her rigging was so much cut that she was unable immediately to shorten sail. The Virginie was completely riddled. Some of the Indefatigable's shot had even gone through the sail-room and out at the opposite side of the ship. She had four feet water in her hold, and more than forty of her crew were killed and wounded. Yet she attempted ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... chimney. At the top of the stairs, where it was still quite dark, he could see Peter curled up in bed. But it was not he that he had come to see. He began groping about on the floor in search of something. "Ah! here it is!" he said with a chuckle, bringing to light a stocking most woefully riddled with holes. Morgridge Klaus stuffed a paper parcel into the stocking, and laying it carefully on the floor, stumbled down stairs, chuckling to himself and taking ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... his flitter through that murky, radiation-riddled atmosphere, setting up equations from the readings of his various meters and gauges and solving those equations almost instantaneously in his mathematical-prodigy's mind, sat appalled. For the activity level was, and even ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... themselves forever on the hearts of soldiers. As the flags of the 30th, the 96th, and the 33d demi-brigades were borne past him, and he saw that, of those banners, there remained but a stick and a few rags, riddled with balls and blackened with powder, he took his hat from his head ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... immediate vicinity, of the double-banked infantry. In the excitement the muzzles of the exploding rifles were turned in all directions. The slaughter was terrible—horses, troops, spectators, and the King and Queen, were riddled with bullets. To complicate the affair, in different parts of the crowd behind the foot-soldiers, two terrorists had bombs explode on their persons. These bombs they had intended to throw if they got the opportunity. But who was to know this? The frightful havoc wrought by the bursting ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... Bay. There is a channel on either side of that island, and both were reputed to be guarded by torpedoes. The Spaniards had an enormous stock of munitions of war—modern German guns enough to have riddled the fleet of American cruisers—and why did they not have torpedoes? They had the Mauser rifle, which has wonderful range, and ten millions of smokeless powder cartridges. Marksmen could sweep the decks of a ship with Mausers at the distance of a mile, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... forward toward the open door. April dusk, the color of cold dish-water, showed through it. Dusk in the city comes sadly, crowding into narrow streets and riddled with an ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... more powerfully descriptive than a word, so these shot-riddled walls had their own eloquence. Each shot-hole, each jagged splinter and torn hinge had its own history and added its pathetic detail to the whole picture of that disastrous night when the vengeance of Behar Singh had burst like a hurricane ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... under fire. Singling out one of Stuart's men, he covered that cavalier with his revolver, and probably, in another instant, would have ended his career; but, just as his finger gave the final pressure upon the trigger, his horse, riddled with bullets, fell dead under him, the shot flew wide of its mark, and he fell to ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... luxury in which no one ever thinks of indulging in a barrack; and in a barrack such as ours at this time, riddled with gaps and breaches, and filled with all manner of cold draughts, it was not every night in which a candle would have burnt. And as our fuel, which consisted of sorely decayed wood—the roofing ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Sedley bore down upon them, his right arm high, crumpled in his hand the folds, tarnished with smoke, riddled by shot, of the great ensign. It was the beginning of the end. Half an hour later the red cross of St. George usurped the place of the golden flag. That same afternoon the Cygnet and the San Jose—the latter now manned by an English ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... footsteps that led toward the horizon were the color of blood, and one woman, who could not keep her eyes ahead, moaned as she fled, prayed, and even screamed to return to her dead in the bullet-riddled horse trough. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... of fire in a country where most of the dwellings are composed of inflammable materials, is truly astonishing. Accustomed to see enormous fires blazing on every hearth-stone, and to sleep in front of these fires, his bedding often riddled with holes made by hot particles of wood flying out during the night, and igniting beneath his very nose, the sturdy backwoodsman never dreads an enemy in the element that he is used to regard as his best friend. Yet what awful accidents, what ruinous calamities arise, out of this ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... value as works of Art, while their tendency is horrible and their details to me revolting. Carriages shattered and overturned, animals transfixed by spear-thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls and ghastly with coming death, such are the spectacles which the more favored and fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire and enjoy. These battle-pieces have ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... 7th of July, the Chinese commands having prepared the ground for their attacks by a heavy cannonade lasting for sixty hours, which riddled everything above the ground level with gaping holes, started pushing forward through the breaches, and setting fire, by means of torches attached to long bamboo poles, to everything which would burn. No living men, no matter how brave, can ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... black boy stood behind exposing his teeth, and gums and the whites of his eyes freely; "niver mention it, Mr Slagg; accidents will happen, you know, in the best regulated families. As for me beaver, it's better riddled than whole in this warm weather. Maybe you'd as well carry your gun at what sodgers call 'the showlder,' wid the muzzle pintin' at the moon—so; that's it. Don't blame yoursilf, Mr Slagg. Sure, it's worse than that I was when I begood, for the nasty ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... are unnaturally stimulated by it. Whisky numbs a man's mind and makes his hands unsteady; cocaine not only crazes him, but lends him accuracy in shooting. Moreover, it deadens his sensibility, so that he goes on fighting even though riddled with wounds. Thus the use of this drug explains why the modern gunman is so deadly in his work and at the same time so difficult of capture, as it does the similar phenomena among the Southern negroes who, since they have been denied rum by state prohibition, have ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... of the burning vessel enabled the whole of the terrible scene to be clearly witnessed. Half the ships were partly or wholly dismasted, the rigging was cut to pieces, and the sails were riddled with balls. The splintered sides, bulwarks shot away, and port-holes blown into one, showed how terrible was the damage inflicted on both sides. Higher and higher rose the flames on board the Orient. Men could be ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... steady!"—and, like an echo to the veterans, out came the crash of nearly a thousand rifles not fifty paces from them. The Highlanders reeled before the shock like trees before the tempest. Their best, their bravest, fell in that wild hail of lead. General Wauchope was down, riddled with bullets; yet, gasping, dying, bleeding from every vein, the Highland chieftain raised himself on his hands and knees, and cheered his men forward. Men and officers ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... her father. Nothing that he had urged upon her at the St. Simon had now the least weight in her understanding; all his argument was now seen to be but the sheerest sophistry, every statement he had made and every promise fairly riddled with treachery; hardly a phrase he had uttered would have gained an instant's credence under the analysis of a normal intelligence. He could have accomplished nothing had she not been without sleep for nearly twenty-four hours, with every nerve and fibre and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... concludes, and never surely without great profit from his having been "drawn." His apparent triumph—if it be even apparent—still leaves, it will be noted, convenient cover for retort in the riddled face of the opposite stronghold. The last word in these cases is for nobody who can't pretend to an ABSOLUTE test. The terms here used, obviously, are matters of appreciation, and there is no short cut to proof ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... shadow-like for three months, and during the same year Abdul Hamid was finally selected to fill the throne, and stand forth as the Shadow of God. It was a disturbed and tottering inheritance to which he succeeded, riddled with the dry-rot of corruption, but the inheritor proved himself ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... writes, "when I roused General Grossetti from his sleep in the straw, in the miserable little shell-riddled ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... Noyes, late Governor of Ohio, lost his leg. I came very near being shot myself while reconnoitring in the second story of a house on our picket-line, which was struck several times by cannon-shot, and perfectly riddled with musket-balls. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Corso, we soon turned up a valley to the left, winding among hills of no great elevation and cultivated to their summits. Not much farther than a mile from the town, we passed a lone house, the door of which was riddled with bullets. The brigands attacked it not long before. It was an affair, I believe, of summary justice for some ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... together, had escaped without a man being wounded, while not only were seven of the government troops knocked down by bullets, but the huts and furniture of our camp, including boxes in the magazine, &c, had been completely riddled with balls." He then began to lay the blame on Wat-el-Mek, and even had the audacity to declare that "he had nothing to do with slaves, but that he could not restrain his people from kidnapping." I never heard any human being pour out such a cataract ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... brave, even reckless, failed. The brigades broke in vain on Jackson's iron front. Riddled by the fire of the great battery and of the riflemen they could not go on and live. The Germans had longed for revenge, but they did not get it. The South Carolinians fell upon them at the edge of the wood and hurled them back. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cried, jumping over the parapet and stopping a shower of muck which a bursting shell flung in his face. We were with him immediately, and presently found ourselves at the door (p. 071) of a red brick cottage with all the windows smashed, roof riddled with shot, and walls broken, just as ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... be difficult to analyse Eleanor's feelings as she walked home. She was nearly stupefied by the things that had been said to her. She felt sore that her heart should have been so searched and riddled by a comparative stranger, by a woman whom she had never liked and never could like. She was mortified that the man whom she owned to herself that she loved should have concealed his love from her and shown it to another. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... The fire of the enemy was now terrific. The troops were some three hundred yards from the crest, and it was certain death to show a head above the wall. An officer placed his helmet on the end of his sword, and the moment he raised it, it was riddled by ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... his beast, and there was a crackle of brush about him as the black trees streamed past. The thrill of the pursuit possessed him; after weeks of patient labor, he felt the exhilaration of the wild night ride. The trail, he knew, was riddled here and there with gopher holes and partly grown with brush that might bring his horse down, but this did not count. He was glad, however, that the teamster was behind him, because he could see the dim gap ahead between the mass of trees, and he thought that it was rapidly becoming ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... a number of small villages completely riddled; one village had but a single house ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... the Division was concerned was a failure, for of the three allotted to the 6th Division two broke down before starting, and the third, moving off in accordance with orders long before the infantry, had its periscope shot off, its peep-holes blinded, was riddled by armour-piercing bullets, and had to come back without achieving anything. This again found a parallel in the attack on the Quadrilateral, near St. Quentin, on 18th September 1918, when the ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... his errand, Hon Yost's clothing was riddled with bullets to indicate escape from the Americans. Reaching the camp of the Indians, he told in a mysterious way of a premeditated attack upon them and aroused their fears. St. Leger heard of his ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... found on coming nearer was small and mean-looking and very old; the farm buildings in a dilapidated condition, the thatch rotten and riddled with holes in which many starlings and sparrows had their nests. Gates and fences were broken down, and the ground was everywhere overgrown with weeds and encumbered with old broken and rusty implements, and littered with rubbish. No person could I see about the place, but knew it was inhabited ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... back in Espanola yet, and his means for getting there were crumbling away beneath his feet. One of the three remaining caravels was entirely riddled by seaworms and had to be abandoned at the harbour called Puerto Bello; and the company was crowded on to two ships. The men now became more than ever discontented at the easterly course, and on May 1st, when he had come as far east ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... and a shower of bullets riddled the turgotine. At this unexpected volley the old vehicle gave forth such a lamentable cry that the Chouans, superstitious by nature, recoiled in terror; but Marche-a-Terre caught sight of the pallid face of the silent traveller rising from ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... was fairly riddled by bombs during the entire day, and at about 3:45 the scaffolding surrounding the north tower caught fire. This fire lasted about one hour, and during that time two further bombs struck the roof, setting it also on fire. The cure claims that ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... rolled the trumpeter under his horse's feet; a volley riddled the other's horse, and the agonized animal reared and cleared the bristling abatis with a single bound, his rider dropping dead among ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... get him now or never!" thought Tom. Once more he shifted his direction, and then, as he had his gun aimed just where he wanted it, he pressed the lever and a burst of bullets shot out and fairly riddled the red plane. It seemed to stop for an instant in the air, and then, quivering, turned and went down in a nose ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago; And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason, Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro, Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken, Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken By the injustice of ...
— The Green Helmet and Other Poems • William Butler Yeats
... injured was a French sergeant whose body was literally riddled with shrapnel. A brief examination had convinced Gys that the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... three or four of them had "roped him," and by spurring up their horses, he was dragged first one way and then another, making frantic efforts to free himself, and growling savagely all the while. Meanwhile the other horsemen rode up as near as safety would permit, and fairly riddled him with arrows. Overcome by superior numbers, "old Eph," at length succumbed to his fate, and a few lance thrusts soon put an ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... sir," said Bob, his face changing; "the balloon's been found pretty well riddled, with the observer dead in the basket. The Highlanders took the wood this morning, you know, but there's no sign of Dennis. We can only hope for the best, Pater, and that is, that he is a prisoner. Eh? What did you say?—I can't ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... of the world; and as the Shah-in-Shah she had been overtaken on the high seas, indecently full of munitions of war, by the cruiser of an agitated Power at issue with its neighbour. That time she was very nearly sunk, and her riddled hull gave eminent lawyers of two countries great profit. After a season she reappeared as the Martin Hunt painted a dull slate-colour, with pure saffron funnel, and boats of robin's-egg blue, engaging in the Odessa trade ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... unhinged, riddled through and through, instantly gather themselves together with sufficient force to hold out against a foe flushed with triumph and intoxicated with success? Impossible! Students of Napier may recall the description of the panic ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... water-front streets, with their calk-riddled plank sidewalks and low-fronted bars; of squalid back wine-rooms, where for a week they would be allowed to bask, sodden, in the smiles of the painted women—then, drugged, beaten, and robbed, would wake up in a filthy alley and hunt up a job ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... flag, showed that the Cossacks were at last scaling the great pile of miscellaneous objects that blocked the street. A dozen of the Czar's soldiers appeared silhouetted against the sky as they scrambled across the top of the barricade, but next second a dozen corpses fell to earth, riddled by the bullets of the men ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... is absolutely overpowering. We hasten from the spot, but are arrested in our flight by the "special," who leads us to the gate of the catacombs, and bids us follow him. I know not to what extent the earth has been riddled under the Chinese Quarter; probably no man knows save he who has burrowed, like a gopher, from one living grave to another, fleeing from taxation or the detective. I know that we thread dark passages, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... the lips that falter, wan, "The age of miracles is gone!" I have learned to read the grim Testimony unto Him Printed with starvation's hand On every hove! through the land; I have swung the crazy door To find huddled on a floor Rat-gnawed and riddled, with never a clout To keep the eager winter out, Some six or seven of our kind Shivering beneath the wind, Foodless, fireless, hungry-eyed, Crouched round one who just had died, Hopeless that the dawn would bring ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... incessant bombardment, the enemy took to firing red-hot shot, and on the 13th the barracks were set on fire, and, a strong wind blowing, the fire spread so rapidly that upward of fifty sick and wounded were burned. The other buildings were so riddled with shot and shell that they afforded scarcely any shelter. Many of the besieged made holes in the ground or under the banks of the intrenchments; but the deaths from sunstroke and fever were even more numerous than those caused by the murderous ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... The major set him up as a young ranchman in a lovely valley in the Big Horn Range, and there he went sturdily to work, but before the winter was fairly on the country was rousing to the appeals of Cuba, and before it was gone the Maine had sunk, a riddled hulk, and the spring came in ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... bore down to receive her new Captain and the addition to her ship's company. Three of the Terrible's officers accompanied their Captain; the rest were distributed among the vacancies in the fleet. There floated the old Terrible, with her well-riddled and torn sails furled, but her pendant, and ensign, and Union-Jack still flying at her peak and mastheads. She was deserted. The lieutenants, with the master-at-arms and the quartermasters, had gone round her decks to assure themselves that no human being remained in her. The shot, ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled Amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the rivulet and followed its bank. It was a passage made by elephants, and those animals, doubtless by hundreds, were in the habit of traversing this part of the forest. Great holes, made by the feet of the enormous pachyderms, riddled a soil softened during the rainy season. Its spongy nature also prepared it for those ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... immediate heaven, without the critical formality of a judgment-day. He fights with more than feudal faithfulness and with undiverted tenacity. He is in his nature unconquerable. So that the French, though they have riddled this thunder-cloud of a Kabylia with their shot, seamed it through and through with military roads, and established a beautiful fort national right in the middle of it, on the plateau of Souk-el-Arba, possess it to-day about as thoroughly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... called him. In his "Essay" of 1762, he gave a highly-coloured account of Fielding's first marriage, and of the promptitude with which, assisted by yellow liveries and a pack of hounds, he managed to make duck and drake of his wife's little fortune. This account has now been "simply riddled in its details" (as Mr. Saintsbury puts it) by successive biographers, the last destructive critic being the late Sir Leslie Stephen, who plausibly suggested that the "yellow liveries" (not the family liveries, be it noted!) were simply a confused recollection of the fantastic pranks of that other ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... the prince meant to do, but before long he was fast asleep. And while he slept, the princesses danced and danced, for, in the morning, the soles of their slippers were once more riddled with holes. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... of me! For if you can't make out these words, not only have I ever uselessly lavished affection upon you, but the regard, with which you have always treated me, has likewise been entirely of no avail! And it's mostly because you won't set your mind at ease that your whole frame is riddled with disease. Had you taken things easier a bit, this ailment of yours too wouldn't have grown worse from ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of a future life for us. But this negation fully admitted is no evidence of our total mortality. Science is impotent to give any proof reaching to such a conclusion. However badly the archery of the sharp eyed and strong armed critics of disbelief has riddled the outer works of ordinary argument, it has not slain the garrison. Scientific criticism therefore leaves us at this point: there may be an immortal soul in us. Then the question whether there actually is an immortal soul in us, rests entirely on ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... half that time had elapsed, there burst from her such a blaze of cannon and musketry that the night was illumined as though by a flash of lightning. The schooner trembled to her keel with the concussion. The advancing canoes were so torn and riddled, by the hail of grape and bullets, that several of them sank, a score of their occupants were killed, many more were wounded, and the survivors fled in consternation to the shore. From there, behind a breastwork of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... are being driven by its deep political divisions. The northern area has declared its independence as "Somaliland"; the central area, Puntland, is a self-declared autonomous state; and the remaining southern portion is riddled with the struggles of rival factions. Economic life continues, in part because much activity is local and relatively easily protected. Agriculture is the most important sector, with livestock normally accounting for about 40% of GDP and about 65% ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... needle of annihilation through the fortress, destroying the secondary controls. Then, the walls unresisting, he cut in the vastly larger, but infinitely less powerful, I-P ray, and with it systematically riddled the immense heptagon. Out through the gaping holes in the outer walls rushed the dense atmosphere of Jupiter, and the hexans in their ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... out of gloom uncoiling into gloom, The River, jaded and forlorn, Welters and wanders wearily—wretchedly—on; Yet in and out among the ribs Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls, Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, Lingers to babble to a broken tune (Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!) So melancholy a soliloquy It sounds as it might tell The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, The terror of Time and Change and Death, That wastes ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... all, and the others are well-nigh as skilful. Yesterday I put up a breastplate such as is worn by our men-at- arms and asked them to shoot at it at eighty yards. They fired a volley together at it. It was riddled like a colander; not one of the five-and- twenty arrows had failed ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... again by another route, that as soon as we were across the wooden bridge over the Gakkon River, Chanden Sing and I, on perceiving the large Shoka encampment at the foot of the hill, lashed our ponies and ran away from our guard. Galloping our hardest along the high cliff, riddled with holes and passages in which the natives live, we found ourselves at last among friends again. The Shokas, who had come over to this market to exchange their goods with the Tibetans, were astounded when they saw us. They recognized us ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... leaps highest in folly and the nights are riddled with incandescent tire and chewing gum signs; jazz bands and musical comedies to the ticket speculators' tune of five dollars a seat, My Khaki-Boy, covered with the golden hoar of three hundred Metropolitan nights rose to the slightly off key grand finale of its ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... attack. Under a rain of fire from the Union ships, and from share fortifications too distant to be effective, the Merrimac rammed and sank the sloop-of-war Cumberland, and then, after driving the frigate Congress aground, riddled her with shells. Towards nightfall the Confederate vessel moved dawn stream, to ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... wars of the Rebellion and Independence this ancient building was destroyed, only the shot-riddled and battered outer ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Tennessee! In reckless way Virginia heard her comrade say: "Close round this rent and riddled rag!" What time she set her battle-flag ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... into Prussian, in the Financial, Administrative and every other respect:—in all which important operations the success was noiseless, but is considered to have been perfect, or nearly so. Cannot we, from these enormous Paper-masses, carefully riddled, afford the reader a glimpse or two, to quicken his ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... whizzed through the bushes, they cut into the thatched huts, they flung swirls of dust on the little line of brave soldiers, they poured like stinging sweeps of hail, volley after volley, along the Tondo road. When the lantern flashed again, sixteen bullets riddled it, and without its help ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... what was in the woods. Rifles and machine-guns poured a spray of lead across the crest when the French appeared. But the French, who were righting for Sister Julie's town, would not stop their rush at first. They kept on, as Pickett's men did when the Federal guns riddled their ranks with grapeshot. This accounts for many of the mounds being well beyond the crest. The Germans made a mistake in firing too soon. They would have made a heavier killing if they had allowed the charge to go farther. After the French fell back, for two days and nights their wounded lay ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... distant is a point-blank target for modern guns and gunners, and everything protected by less than eight inches of steel suffered. The Argyll had lost her military mast and most of her secondary guns. The flag-ship Cumberland, raked and riddled by nine- and eleven-inch shells, surrounded herself with steam from punctured boilers shortly after the signal to turn, and swung drunkenly out of line, her boilers roaring, her heavy guns barking. A long, black thing, low down behind the wave created by its rush, darted by her, unstruck by ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... it, and from whom it came. I asserted utter ignorance; but, as I took it in my hand, I heard a rattling, and it suddenly flashed across my mind that it might be the proofs of some photographs which the Moscow artist had "hurried" through in one month. The amiable post-office "blindman," who had riddled out the address, was quite willing to give me the parcel without further ado, but ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... equally good chance that he would ride straight into a nest of the waiting men, and, even if he reached the forest, he would be riddled with bullets. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... sinensis), likewise, are engaged in family duties. The river bank in which a colony of these birds is nesting is the scene of much animation. The bank is riddled with holes, each of which, being the entrance to a martin's nest, is visited a score of times an hour by the parent birds, bringing insects captured while flying ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... strong garrison. The place is a compact walled town, crowned by the dome of a large and handsome church, and situated in a plain by the side of the Volturno. Though, contrary to expectation, there is no firing to-day, we see all about us the havoc of previous cannonadings. The houses we pass are riddled with round shot thrown by the besieged, and the ground is strewn with the limbs of trees severed by iron missiles. But where is Garibaldi? No one knows. Yonder, however, is a lofty hill, and upon its summit we descry three or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... a shambles. The bodies of the victims, still breathing, but riddled with bullets, were pitched from the window. Draga, fortunately for herself, expired at once. But the luckless ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... gatlings went off at a terrible rate, and volleys succeeded each other, second for second, from five in the morning till half-past nine. The work of death was fearful, and hundreds of spectators were shot down as they watched from their balconies or housetops. Cannon balls riddled all the houses near the Cinco Esquinas. In the attack on the Plaza Lavalle, three hundred men ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... teeth. I recognised the southern whale by its flat head, which is entirely black. Anatomically, it is distinguished from the white whale and the North Cape whale by the seven cervical vertebrae, and it has two more ribs than its congeners. The unfortunate cetacean was lying on its side, riddled with holes from the bites, and quite dead. From its mutilated fin still hung a young whale which it could not save from the massacre. Its open mouth let the water flow in and out, murmuring like the waves breaking on the shore. Captain Nemo steered close to the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... ran as follows: "No. 6 train, engine Secretary, was fired into at Bristoe by a party of cavalry, some 500 strong. They had piled ties on the track, but the engine threw them off. Secretary is completely riddled by bullets.") The line was then torn up, and two trains which followed in the same direction as the first were thrown down a high embankment. A fourth, scenting danger ahead, moved back before it reached the break in the road. The column had ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... swept the bare ground, where they were lying, had been so great that they had stuck their thumbs in their mouths and bit on them to keep from bleating like calves. Many of the bodies thus exposed were hit so frequently that they were literally riddled with bullet holes. ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... negociation, Abellino produced a pair of good flint-locked Schneller pistols, and exhibited his skill before the company. He ordered his lackey to throw linden leaves up into the air in front of him, and riddled them with bullets three times running. This he did simply to fill the adversary with terror. Michael, fathoming his object, whispered confidentially in the young ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... an owl appears by day and one of them perceives him, immediately a clamour arises—a veritable cry of war; all those who are in the neighbourhood fly to the spot, and business ceases; the nocturnal bird of prey is assaulted, riddled with blows from beaks, stunned, his feathers torn out, and, notwithstanding his defence, he ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... fired upon? Why do we still see him with the colors flying above his head, now beyond the reach of rifle-balls, when but a moment before he could have been riddled with bullets? And now, see I he enters proudly but breathlessly the ranks, and receives the congratulations of ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... placed in the wine vaults below the castle, had heavy fetters on his hands and feet, and sat for days in a crunched position. The historic contest began. For two hours at a stretch the King's examiners riddled Augusta with questions. "Who sent the letter to the King?"41 they asked. "Where do the Brethren keep their papers and money? To whom did the Brethren turn for help when the King called on his subjects to support ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... but there it was. The road was narrow, and the coachman pulled up to let me work my way past. The vehicle was a queer old affair, that looked as if it had been dug out of some antediluvian stable yard. The curtains were brown with age and dust, and riddled with holes; the body was bare and worm-eaten, and the springs perfectly green with mould. The horses were thin and lank, and the harness in as sorry a condition as the coach. The driver's clothes, which were very old fashioned, hung about him in loose folds, and ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... time the real peril, the colonel of the Eleventh made an impassioned appeal to the regiment to stand by its colors and to take no part in the useless revolt. While he was speaking, a volley riddled his body, and he tumbled lifeless from his saddle. The Eleventh, however, covered the flight of the other officers, but helped to release a thousand prisoners, suffering punishment for various offenses, and then ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... hospital flag floated above it. This unfortunate house, with its maimed occupants, was brought between Reynolds's men and the attacking enemy when the former were driven into the open field; and, despite the non-combatant flag flying from the gable, it was riddled with shells from the Southern batteries. I do not charge upon those gunners a knowledge of the facts here given: their batteries were some distance away through the forest. However, whether they saw the house and the flag or not, their fire swept mercilessly through the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... Deerfoot dare not attempt to use the paddle. The blue puffs of smoke were so near that it would have been fatal to expose himself to the aim of his enemies, but, unless the canoe could be propelled still further from them, it was likely to be riddled ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... was once a kiddy upon town, A thorough varmint and a real swell... Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled, His pockets first, and then his body riddled. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Some build their habitations, composed of a papery substance, attached to the under side of the broad leaves of the tucuma and other palms. Others, again, form them in hollow trees, or among their roots in the earth. Many build in houses, or pierce their mud walls till they look as if riddled with shot. Others make holes in the ground, especially in sandy places. Others, again, construct their habitations of clay, and fasten them to the boughs of trees or to buildings. There are, indeed, mason bees, carpenter bees, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... home the flag that had flown over the fort during the bombardment he obtained it in this wise: "The sailors from this ship," said he, "hauled down the flag, and one of them seized it and hid it in his bosom; there was not much left of it; it was riddled and torn. He brought it to me, declaring that no one had a right to it but the captain of the Chickasaw. I hardly knew what to do about it, but the man seemed so earnest I could not refuse ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... John of Austria nipped them and riddled them with ball, As soon as his eyes fell on them, and ducked ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... took the same route as I had taken to get in, and went through the little square where I had left my horse. It had been the scene of a fierce encounter which had left many dead and dying, among whom I saw my stubborn horse, its back broken by a cannon-ball, and its body riddled by bullets!.... From there I made for the outskirts in something of a hurry because the burning houses were collapsing on all sides and I was afraid of being buried beneath the debris. At last I got out of the town and reached ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... broad window behind Sandy had not been lowered, and a very magnificent black night riddled with stars stood like a shield against which the boyish form and pale face rested. There was a crumbling fire on the hearth, and the lamp on the table was turned low. Markham, listening to the slow, earnest voice, became hypnotized ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... mentor, made so sharp and well directed an attack that the Duke, perceiving that his vessel would soon have to strike, made the best of his way aboard the "Saint Michael"; when he had seen the "Saint Michael," riddled and shattered by the Dutch broadside, drift out of the line; when he had witnessed the sinking of the "Earl of Sandwich," and the death by fire or drowning of four hundred sailors; when he realized that the result of all this destruction—after twenty ships had been blown to pieces, ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... prisoners. These being taken red-handed, the victors, who with malice inconceivable had brought cords knotted round their waists, did speedily hang, and by their side the dead ones, to make the gallanter show. "That one at the end was the captain. He never felt the cord. He was riddled with broad arrows and leaden balls or ever they could take him: a worthy man as ever cried, 'Stand and deliver!' but a little hasty, not much: stay! I forgot; he is dead. Very hasty, and obstinate as a pig. That one in the—buff jerkin is the lieutenant, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... simultaneously toward him from different directions, and though he emptied his pistol with good effect, they reached him at last. They seemed to know that his ammunition was exhausted, for they circled close about him now with the evident intention of taking him alive, since they might easily have riddled him with their sharp spears ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 1,905 different elevations, of which six exceed 15,000 feet, and twenty-two exceed 14,400 feet. The highest summit of all towers to a height of 22,606 feet above the surface of the lunar disc. At the same period the examination of the moon was completed. She appeared completely riddled with craters, and her essentially volcanic character was apparent at each observation. By the absence of refraction in the rays of the planets occulted by her we conclude that she is absolutely devoid of an atmosphere. The absence of air entails ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... the slip from tune to twang! Sweets bitter grow, as aye they did; For e'en the Roman poet sang "Surgit amari aliquid." Our pigmy worries turn us grey; And sorrows fierce are less acute; Our hearts are riddled every day With ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... accompanied them to the house in question. It showed signs at once of mob violence. The snow in the garden was trampled down, the windows broken, and one of the lower ones smashed in as if an entry had been effected here. The door was riddled with bullet holes. Upon this being opened the destruction within was seen to be complete, rooms being strewn with broken furniture ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... hoping, I have little doubt, that another discomfiture or miscarriage will serve to put him in the saddle. If we are finally conquered, 't will not be by defeat in the field, but by the dirty politics with which this nation is riddled, and which makes a man general because he comes from the right State, and knows how ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... been cartridges in it, I should have been riddled, for I stood right in front. And I shuddered as I noted the small straps around Jerome's wrists, running up his sleeves, so disposed that the act of surrendering meant instant death to ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... to something to avoid being washed overboard; that their timber cargo would keep them afloat; and that as long as the rigging held they could sail. He carried no top-gallant-mast, so as not to strain her; her sails were all in holes, as if they had been riddled with bullets; and where ropes had broken in the rigging, they had been tied in clumsy knots, instead of being spliced in proper sailor-like fashion. There was not much to boast of in the way of navigation either; the captain keeping his log by the simple method ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... journal at arm's length with hand a thought more shaky, perhaps, than usual. Presently he looked up: "Mother of God! what a white-faced rogue it is! Eh, Giuseppe?" "By Mars, if looks could stab, thou hadst been riddled by the knife before this," said his friend. Marco shrugged and went on ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... he stopped when he saw two familiar figures, sitting on a log. They were elderly men in uniforms riddled by bullets. The right arm of one and the left leg of the other were tightly bandaged. Their faces were very white and it was obvious that they were sitting there, because they were not strong ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for a moment. But the nature of their works was ill-calculated to withstand the scientific accuracy with which the besiegers made their attack. Every ball now told—the tower in the centre was completely riddled by shots and shells; the bursting of these latter had disabled great numbers of the garrison. By seven o'clock the besieged had begun to retire from the most damaged part of their works; by half-past eight the whole outer line of defence ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Force kept a tight-lipped silence. Meantime, rumors began to spread. One report said that Mantell had been shot, his body riddled with bullets; his P-51, also riddled, had simply disintegrated. Another rumor reported Mantell as having been killed by some mysterious force; this same force had also destroyed his fighter. The Air Force, the rumors said, had covered up the truth by telling Mantell's ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... proudly raised aloft, and as the driving, vaporous rack eddied and swirled about them, they shone like a radiant vision of glory emblazoned on the heavens, soon to fade and vanish from the sight. Water was dripping from the gilded eagle, and the tattered, shot-riddled tri-color, on which were embroidered the names of former victories, was stained and its bright hues dimmed by the smoke of many a battlefield; the sole bit of brilliant color in all the faded splendor was the enameled cross of honor that ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... everybody could say; and in order to make it a sound bit of work, he fetched a lump of quick-lime from the kiln, where they burned quantities of it to scatter over the clay-soil, and first wetting it with water till it fell into powder, and then mixing it with sand which he riddled from the gravel he dug from the garden, he made it into good strong mortar. When its bed was at length made for it, he took the wheel and put in a longer axis, to project on one side beyond the gudgeon-block, or hollow in which it turned; and upon this projecting piece ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... a stated hour, and for no other reason than that the clatter of the pavements prevents him. As a promoter of alertness, where is your cowpath? The cowpaths of the Catskills, and we all know the mountains are riddled by 'em, didn't keep Rip Van Winkle awake, and I'll wager Mr. Whitechoker here a year's board that there isn't a man in his congregation who can sleep a half-hour—much less twenty ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... saturated with love, but it was a new love—a love for the man who is suffering, desire for abnegation, for sacrifice. This love called forth visions of white caps, of tremulous hands healing shell-riddled and bleeding flesh. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and amongst the tents, thereby considerably adding to the confusion and uproar. On the alarm first sounding every light was extinguished in the camp, and well was it that these precautionary measures were adopted, for a great portion of the standing tents were riddled. The enemy fired without aim, and we were fortunate enough to lose only one sepoy; we could not ascertain the amount of casualty amongst them, but from the sudden cessation of any attack upon that part of the line where the artillery was stationed, we concluded that the rounds of grape must have ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... Heaven knows we had no reason to show mercy to that criminal, but that last hopeless struggle against odds had enlisted some sympathy, and I had a feeling of nausea at the sight of that collapse. He must have fallen riddled with bullets. He had played for high stakes, had sacrificed many innocent lives, and had died the death of a dog. And there he would rest and rot in that remote ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... have been under the counter in his shop, or perhaps at nights he inhabited a worm-eaten Jacobean bedstead which stood in an attic, for I observed a kind of pathway to it running through a number of legless chairs, also some dirty blankets between the moth-riddled curtains. ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard |
