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More "Haft" Quotes from Famous Books



... Yussef, came to revenge him, but he knew not with whom he had to deal. Bishop Hieronymo led the right wing, and made havoc in the ranks of the foe. "The bishop pricked forward," we are told. "Two Moors he slew with the first two thrusts of his lance; the haft broke and he laid hold on his sword. God! how well the bishop fought. He slew two with the lance and five with the sword. The ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... ask his name, however, for in one hand he carried a weapon such as had seldom seen the light since powder had come to Ireland. It was an ax, some five feet from haft to helve; double-bladed, each blade eight inches long, curved back slightly, and two inches thick by twice as much wide. The edges, which came down sharply from the thickness, were not overkeen, and were not meant to be so. ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the King's Oak into billets to heat a brown baker's oven; and we will dispark your park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, neither shall you have any portion thereof, whether in neck or haunch. Ye shall not haft a ten-penny knife with the horns thereof, neither shall ye cut a pair of breeches out of the hide, for all ye be cutlers and glovers; and ye shall have no comfort or support neither from the sequestered traitor Henry Lee, who called himself ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... rested his hand on the dead earl's chest he touched the haft of the weapon that had worked this cruel deed. He knew the knife and guessed how all had happened. He grasped the handle in his fingers and tried to withdraw the long blade; but the blood gushed out from the terrible wound, and the lad grew faint ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... his forehead. About twenty Mexicans, dead and dying, were lying at his feet. The juggler was also there dead. With one hand he was clenching the hair of a dead Mexican, while with the other he had driven his knife to the haft in the ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... in with the haft of the boat-hook, until he could stretch down and seize upon the collar of the man's coat. As the Irish lad was brawny and nerved just then to mighty deeds, he managed to hoist the fellow into ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... of a curved, handle, and in usually being sharp on both edges instead of only on one. These are made in various sizes (Fig. 46, a, b), and the blades flat, curved on the flat, or curved at an angle with the edges of the haft. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... the form of a rude rope, he tied it loosely around his leg, just above the ankle. Then he thrust his knife between the improvised rope and the leg, forming a crude tourniquet. He twisted the knife until tears of pain formed in his eyes. Then he fastened the knife by tucking the haft under the rope. His movements had been very deliberate, but sure, and in a few minutes he hobbled to his pony ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... he was not going to be able to escape the hug, and he placed the haft of the knife against his own breast, with the point directed toward ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... but the iron-pointed one is needed when the animal's head alone is above the water or the ice. Both are cleverly put together with wood, bone, and thongs, so arranged that when necessary head and haft easily come apart. ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe

... Dudgeon-haft, and crab-tree face, With bills and staues had scar'd hir from the place; And now she was compel'd, for Sanctuarie, To flye unto a house ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash

... things that rang Against his pavement, cast his lance aside, And doffed his helm: and then there fluttered in, Half-bold, half-frighted, with dilated eyes, A tribe of women, dressed in many hues, And mingled with the spearmen: and Earl Doorm Struck with a knife's haft hard against the board, And called for flesh and wine to feed his spears. And men brought in whole hogs and quarter beeves, And all the hall was dim with steam of flesh: And none spake word, but all sat down at once, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... be applied to a number of uses, and among others it may be readily converted into a haft or handle for any kind of tailed or shanked tool, such as files, wrenches, olive bits, chisels, or screwdrivers, and may also serve as pincers or nippers. It is ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... the physiological conventionalism that gradations of birth, gentle or mean, show themselves primarily in the form of this member. Nothing but a cast of the die of destiny had decided that the girl should handle the tool; and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash haft might have skilfully guided the pencil or swept the string, had they only been set to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... confined. They shout for joy! and now on her alone Their fury falls, and all their darts are thrown. 170 Their lances spent, one, bolder than the rest, With his broad sword provoked the sluggish beast; Her oily side devours both blade and haft, And there his steel the bold Bermudan left. Courage the rest from his example take, And now they change the colour of the lake; Blood flows in rivers from her wounded side, As if they would prevent the tardy tide, And raise the flood to that propitious height, As might convey her from this fatal ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... was prepared for the prophetess. A porridge of goat's beestings was made for her, and for meat there were dressed the hearts of every kind of beast, which could be obtained there. She had a brass spoon, and a knife with a handle of walrus tusk, with a double hasp of brass around the haft, and from this the point was broken. And when the tables were removed, Yeoman Thorkel approaches Thorbiorg, and asks how she is pleased with the home, and the character of the folk, and how speedily she would be likely to become aware of that concerning which he had questioned her, and which the ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... to whom the unending stretches of choked woodland were an impenetrable cover behind which to move unseen, a shield in making assaults, and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. In the conquest of the west the backwoods axe, shapely, well-poised, with long haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even to the rifle; the two were the national weapons of the American backwoodsman, and in their use he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... a knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long, bright blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time round the camp-fire. He slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his hand. He did not speak another word. Nor did he glance at Joan again. She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out. Jim knelt beside the door, ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... inquiry, if there had been on the part of the really able men among us a determination to break the ice; in other words, if theology had preserved the same commanding interest for the more powerful minds with which it affected them three hundred years ago. But on the one hand, a sense, half serious, haft languid, of the hopelessness of the subject has produced an indisposition to meddle with it; on the other, there has been a creditable reluctance to disturb by discussion the minds of the uneducated or half-educated, to whom the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... speak again' it," said Dolly, rather startled by Silas's knowledge on this head; "but you see I'm no scholard, and I'm slow at catching the words. My husband says I'm allays like as if I was putting the haft for the handle—that's what he says—for he's very sharp, God help him. But it was awk'ard calling your little sister by such a hard name, when you'd got nothing big to say, like—wasn't ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... women round," roared Bolle, "and strike home for Foterell, strike home for Harflete! Ah, priest's dog, in the King's name—this!" and the axe sank up to the haft into the breast of the captain who had told Cicely that she would be warm enough that ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt: They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... the ghastly souvenir and bent over it. A fine bit of Oriental workmanship that any museum might have valued; the haft was of silver, exquisitely chased, the blade was straight and slender, narrowing to a needlelike point, so that it belonged rather to the stiletto type than the dagger. An inscription ran lengthwise down the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... make a good voyageur," Thirlwell remarked. "For one thing, you're determined; I saw you wince once or twice and imagine the paddle-haft hurt." ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... snowshoes and began to run. He held the axe in his hand, gripped near the haft. A couple of hundred yards, perhaps, lay between him and camp, which was just over the brow of a small hill. The bushes flew past as he swung to his stride. Never had he skimmed the crust faster, but his feet seemed to be weighted with ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... little fairy woman who gave him the water-dress, and crystal helmet, and shining spear on the banks of the Boyne, slid into his room, and she placed beside his couch a silver helmet and a silver shield. And she rubbed the helmet, and the shield, and the blue blade and haft of his spear with the juice of the red rowan berries, and she let a drop fall upon his face and hands, and then she slid out as ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... prominent and injected with bile. There was something excessive, almost fanatical, in his devotion to his "white lord." He was inseparable from Jim like a morose shadow. On state occasions he would tread on his master's heels, one hand on the haft of his kriss, keeping the common people at a distance by his truculent brooding glances. Jim had made him the headman of his establishment, and all Patusan respected and courted him as a person of much influence. At ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... broken sword All the long night through While I keep watch and ward! Then—the red fight through, Bless the wrenched haft for me, Christ, King ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... commanded. The majority had some private revenge to satisfy after the public welfare had been served. We met one old man in a frenzy, covered with blood from his white beard to his boots, his arms bare to his shoulders, his knife dripping from haft ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... given it to Fred Munson when he was left alone with the mustang. So, as he had nothing but his knife, he placed his hand upon the haft, glaring defiantly at his enemies, while he continued walking slowly backward, and gradually edging toward the side of the grove. But Apaches were plenty in that latitude, and the business had scarcely opened when three or four warriors commenced a stealthy approach upon the scout from the rear. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... and loosened the net, coiling its folds into one hand, taking the good spear in his other. A bush stirred ahead, against the pull of the light breeze. Rynch froze, then the haft of his spear slid into a new hand grip, the coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... he held in his hand. His eyes seemed to need no further certainty—they seemed gazing to be bound to the dagger; yet still he wished to disbelieve; but the particular form, the same varying tints upon the haft and sheath were alike in splendour on both, and left no room for doubt; there were also drops of blood ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori

... about till his hand came in contact with about two feet of the haft standing out of the thatch, and he began tugging at it to draw it forth. "Won't come, won't you? All right, then, go;" and catching hold of the bamboo staff with his left hand, he doubled his fist and turned his right into a mallet, thumping the butt, which readily yielded ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... sworn, purged of malice and partial council, examined and interrogate, Depones, That he was a servant to Michael Farquharson in Dubrach, in whose house Serjeant Davies quartered: That he saw the Serjeant have a little pen-knife, upon the end of the haft of which there was a seal for sealing of letters, and he heard the Serjeant say that was the use he made of the said seal: That he saw Serjeant Davies leave his master's house about sun-rising that day upon which he was amissing; that he never saw him since: That about two years thereafter, being ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott

... over the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran off together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... above the average height—not much under six feet—and the nodding plumes of his crest make him look several inches taller than he is in reality. His tomahawk, which hangs loosely exposed at his girdle, glitters like highly-polished silver; and the hand which ever and anon toys with the haft is long and bony. The dark, piercing eyes seem almost to transfix every one upon whom they rest. One half of the face seems to be covered by a mask, made to imitate the freshly-painted visage of a Mohawk Indian when starting out upon the war path. He is evidently bent upon preserving a strict ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... that if a guy wanted a hair cut all he'd haft to do would be to wet his hair, leave his hat off, and break off the icicles, ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone

... spat at him, and whipped a knife into his heart. Vincent sobbed, and fell with a thud. In a trice Isoult had struck with her dagger at Maulfry's shoulder. Steel struck steel: the blade broke short off at the haft. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... hast thou clenched upon the occasion with this hand," said the Count, catching hold of it, "which looks as if it had never been washed, save with milk of roses,—and with this childish toy?" pointing to a hammer with ivory haft and silver head, which, stuck into a milk-white kidskin apron, the official wore as badges of his duty. The armourer fell back in some confusion. "His grasp," he said to another domestic, "is like ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... flint to a cutting edge, And shaped it with brutish craft; I broke a shank from the woodland dank, And fitted it, head to haft. Then I hid me close in the reedy tarn, Where the Mammoth came to drink— Through brawn and bone I drave the stone, And slew ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... be frightened did not seem to enter his calculations. He moved with cat-like stealth to the foot of the tiny staircase, and flattened himself against the wall. Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... Whatsoever his blow fended off it crushed; neither shield nor helm endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength could serve. Thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that Hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off the club at the haft, and made it useless. And the gods, when they had lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... I saw this, for I knew I had not struck him as yet. I was drawing my arm from under him to do so, when I noticed that he ceased to resist. But the knife now caught my eye. It was red, blade and haft, and so was the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... though he would have devoured me at that instant time." In the extremity of his terror, he tried to run away from the awful monster; but, as might have been expected under the circumstances, he tumbled to the ground. "I fell down upon my hip, and my knife run into my hip up to the haft. When I came home, my knife was in my sheath. When I drew it out of the sheath, then immediately the sheath fell all to pieces." And further this deponent testifieth, that, after he got up from his ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... at last," said Boots, as he took the axe, pulled it off its haft, and stuffed both head and haft into ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

... yielded beneath the glinting blades, and went on down river again, but Nasmyth, who felt the axe-haft slip in his greasy hands, did not try to lead. It was sufficient if he could keep pace with the rest of the wood-choppers, which was, after all, a thing most men, reared as he had been, would certainly not have done. The lust ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... sanctimonious look, Sir, with his "secret errand unto thee," and his "message from God unto thee," and then pulls out his hidden knife with that unsuspected left hand of his,—(the little gentleman lifted his clenched left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,)—and runs it, blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with these fellows, Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, if you were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions are not attacked is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... hand, "look thee at it! Tha niver wants ter shake hands wi' a hand like that, does ter? There's too much pick-haft and ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... ground with the packing it had contained, and then with an oath Vasilici drew himself to his full height, one hand upon the haft of his knife ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... sound; and I came instant to a possessing of my senses; and I knew that the mighty Voice of the Home-Call did go howling across the Night. And, swift and silent, I slid the cloak from about me, and took the haft of that wondrous Diskos into ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... furious Heart of the fire. Raked with me, prized with me, Till on a sudden Besparked and encircled With Welsh or with Wallsend, Shattering, battering They drew me away. Others in rivalry, Thinking to better The previous performance, Seized me again; Pushed with a leverage Hard on the haft of me, Till with the shocks Sank the red fire, Shivered and sank Subdued into blackness. That is my Toil; I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various

... a loss for words, and sent his knife whirling into the air where it spun at an alarming rate. I edged my chair nearer the door, but the potato-peeler, suddenly standing upright, caught the weapon by the haft as it circled and bent ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... gather all the precious relics up, The golden buttons chased with wondrous craft, The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup, The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft. Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these Unnumbered long-forgotten histories, The deeds heroic of this mighty man, On whom once more the living daylight beams, To shame our littleness, to mock our dreams, And the abyss of centuries ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... seated in a sea-green dressing-gown ornamented by many pretty devices in lace of priceless fabric, which had taken a coffee tint by reason of its age. A book was lying on her knees, and she was toying with an ivory paper-knife which had its haft in a silver embossed rhinoceros tooth. She nodded Paul to a chair which had ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... for the Tarnkappe. The blood gushed from Siegfried's mouth. But he sprang up swiftly, and took the spear that she had shot through his buckler, and threw it back again with a great force. He thought, "I will not slay so fair a maiden," and he turned the spear, and hurled it wit the haft loud against her harness. From her mail, also, the sparks flew as on the wind, for Siegmund's child threw mightily; and her strength failed before the blow. King Gunther, I ween, had never done ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... the knife by the haft in the right hand, and the chip of wood in his left. The point of the knife was towards the white ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... who had removed his armor had not been foolish enough to remove his weapons too; no sane man did that in hostile territory. His hand went to the haft of the blade at ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... red-yew, furnished with a crooked hand-grip of gold, and pointed with shining bronze, and where the bronze met the timber there was a circlet of diamond of the diamonds of Banba. He had also a short-handled scourge with a haft of walrus tooth, and the rope, cord, and lash of that scourge were made of delicate and delicately-twisted thread of copper. This equipment was the equipment of a proved charioteer; the apprentices wore only grey capes with white fringes, fastened ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... The latter is not known to have been hafted, and its working edges were at the pointed end; whereas in Neolithic times the implement had become an axe in the modern sense, with the pointed end inserted in a haft, and the cutting edge removed to the broader end. There are many other Neolithic types, used with or without a haft, and only a small proportion were ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... condottiere from the loyal soldier. Let the navigation-laws be enforced first of all, and see that the due proportion of the crews of every ship be native-born. Let the custom-house protections be no longer the farce they are,—where a man who talks of "awlin haft the main tack" is set down as a native of Martha's Vineyard, and his messmate, who couldn't say "peas" without betraying County Cork, is permitted to hail from the interior of Pennsylvania. Let the ship-owners combine (it is for their interest) to do ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... sword that possessed excellent qualities as being ornamented with gold, and the hilt is the part of the sword that naturally lends itself to ornamentation. Other examples of richly ornamented swords are King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, whose "pommel and haft were all of precious stones";[99] Roland's sword, Durendal, which had a golden hilt;[100] and the sword of Frothi II, which also ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson

... out into the garden, and to a tangled heap lying in the moonlight, on the edge of the long grass. The slave had fallen on top of his master; one leg lay swathed and twisted; one black hand had but partially relaxed upon the haft of a knife (the knife) that stood up hilt-deep in a blacker heart. And in the hand of Santos was still the revolver (my Deane and Adams) which had sent its last ball ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... soldiers, one with the haft of a blood-stained knife between his teeth, had mutilated horribly a living girl. Little Papeete had been decapitated just where his skull lay now; the shrieks and wails of the tortured tore the sky above Berselius; but Adams heard nothing and saw ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... form, it was one whose shape would indicate a spear-head or hatchet. We present illustrations of each. Forms intermediate between these two are found. Some have such a thick heavy base that it is believed they were used in the hand, and had no handle or haft. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... big fish that lay there. Trembling all over with excitement, I made a mad thrust. Then I yelled, and stamped on the fish, getting all wet in doing so. I beat its head in with the haft of the fork. It rolled over, its white belly glinting in the sun. On picking it up, I was disappointed. It had been dead for a long time; had probably swam in there to die ... and its gills were a withered brown-black in colour, like a desiccated ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... believed to be that which runs through the country of Saguenay. One of the natives, without any sign or question made to him, took hold of the silver chain of our captains whistle, and the dagger haft of one of the mariners, which was of gilt brass, giving us to understand that such metals came from that river, where there were evil people named Agouionda, armed even to their finger ends, shewing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... with its head upward, banged the loaf down upon it, drew a knife from its sheath in his belt, and counted the prisoners over with the point of the blade. He then drew a few imaginary lines upon the top of the loaf, paused to rub his woolly head with the haft, looking puzzled and as if cutting the loaf into as many pieces as there were prisoners bothered him, and ended by making a ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... few instants. The boy propped his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... seemed alarmed at my action. Jacques half rose from his chair, put his hand into his bosom, and I discovered the haft of a dagger. I returned to my seat with tranquillity, and affected not ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, whose pommel and haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, "If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... shining haft and the dark blue blade and the silver shield," said the Fairy. "They are on the farther bank of the Mystic Lake in the Island of the Western Seas. They are there for the man who is bold enough to seek them. If you are the man who will bring them back to the lonely moor you will ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... not equal throughout, but widest at the ends. As a matter of fact, Tollius has here hit the right nail on the head quite accidentally; for the holes are really there, of course, to receive the haft of the axe or hammer. But if they were truly thunderbolts, and if the bolts were shafted, then the holes would have been lengthwise, as in an arrowhead, not crosswise, as in an axe or hammer. Which is a complete reductio ad absurdum of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... was like pale brown marble; twice he half turned toward the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he laid his hand flat on the altar; the executioner unbent his bow and the arrow drooped from the painted haft and dangled there, its hammered iron ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... on each of his fingers. His head was wrapped round by a silken veil or turban, and his body was cloathed to the knees in a cotton wrapper, wrought with silk and gold. He wore at his side a sword or dagger, with a haft of gold, and a scabbard of carved wood. This country is so rich, that one of the natives offered a crown of massy gold in exchange for six strings of glass beads; but Magellan would not allow such bargains, lest the Spaniards might appear too greedy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... barrel, to make up for the drink of which they had deprived themselves. The storm had passed, and the stars were shining brightly. They met nobody on their way until within two or three miles of Gunzenhausen; it was found that the haft of Paolo's axe was deeply stained with blood; and he threw it away on issuing from the wood, as it did not accord well with his present attire, which was rather that of a discharged soldier or a worker in cities than of a countryman. Soon after eight o'clock they approached ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... himself, as he heard those horrible, incredible words, and saw the loathsome smirk on the speaker's face by which they were accompanied, from leaping then and there at the savage's throat, and plunging his blade to the haft into the vile creature's body. But by a violent effort he mastered his indignation and wrath for the present. Planting himself full in front of Tu-Kila-Kila, and blocking the way to the door of that sacred English girl's hut—oh, how horrible it was to him even to think of her ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... has also three things of great price, the hammer Miolnir, the best of strength belts, and when he girds that about him waxes his god strength one-half, and his iron gloves that he may not miss for holding his hammer's haft. Balidr is Odin's second son, and of him it is good to say, he is fair and: bright in face, and hair, and body, and him all praise; he is wise and fair-spoken and mild, and that nature is in him none may withstand his doom. Tyr is daring and best of mood; there is a saw ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... "What is the use of this? Where is he?" And his bloodshot eyes—it was Tuez-les-Moines—questioned the doors, while his hand, trembling and shaking on the haft of his knife, bespoke his eagerness. "Where is he? Where is he, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the skeleton. It was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he had dug it up (it was the haft of his pickax that lay broken in the excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the northeast angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in safety since ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... neither shield nor helm endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength could serve. Thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that Hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off the club at the haft, and made it useless. And the gods, when they had lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious rather than in a ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... listeners nobody moved, but there was a murmuring, and all eyes were fixed upon the speaker, who, either by design or accident, leaned upon the haft of ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... beer barrel, to make up for the drink of which they had deprived themselves. The storm had passed, and the stars were shining brightly. They met nobody on their way until within two or three miles of Gunzenhausen; it was found that the haft of Paolo's axe was deeply stained with blood; and he threw it away on issuing from the wood, as it did not accord well with his present attire, which was rather that of a discharged soldier or a worker ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... looked each other between the eyes and there they found no fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt; 15 They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the wondrous ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... I be non of the wise, 920 I am so trewly amerous, That I am evere curious Of hem that conne best enforme To knowe and witen al the forme, What falleth unto loves craft. Bot yit ne fond I noght the haft, Which mihte unto that bladd acorde; For nevere herde I man recorde What thing it is that myhte availe To winne love withoute faile. 930 Yit so fer cowthe I nevere finde Man that be resoun ne be kinde Me cowthe teche ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... off their cloaks with an easy grace, and unsheathed their knives with which to prick one another, the one Flemish with a white haft, the other from Guadix, with a guard to the hilt, both blades dazzling in their brightness, and sharpened and ground enough for operating upon cataracts, much less ripping up bellies and bowels. The two had already cleft the air several times with the said lancets, their cloak wound round ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... weapon. This was a spear, and belonged to him personally. He had brought it all the way from Nubia. It differed from any of the native spears of East Africa both in form and in weight. Its blade was broad and shaped like a leaf; its haft was of wood; and its heel was shod with only the briefest length of iron. Chake kept this spear in a high state of polish, so that its metal shone like silver. He lifted it, poised it, made as though to throw it, to thrust with it. Then with a sigh ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... what thou shalt see there." "My lord," said Sir Bedivere, "your command shall be done, and lightly bring you word again." And so Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, where the pommel and the haft were all of precious stones. And then he said to himself, "If I throw this rich sword into the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss." And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree; and as soon as he might, he came ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... did not seem to enter his calculations. He moved with cat-like stealth to the foot of the tiny staircase, and flattened himself against the wall. Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the knife, ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... able men among us a determination to break the ice; in other words, if theology had preserved the same commanding interest for the more powerful minds with which it affected them three hundred years ago. But on the one hand, a sense, half serious, haft languid, of the hopelessness of the subject has produced an indisposition to meddle with it; on the other, there has been a creditable reluctance to disturb by discussion the minds of the uneducated ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... fire. Little by little his memory returned, and he remembered clearly everything that had taken place, up to the time when the enclosure had been rushed by the Formosan savages, and he himself had fallen unconscious from the blow of a spear haft across his head. What, he wondered, had become of poor Drake? He had not set eyes on him during the whole of that brief scuffle, and he began to fear ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... astonishment I saw this, for I knew I had not struck him as yet. I was drawing my arm from under him to do so, when I noticed that he ceased to resist. But the knife now caught my eye. It was red, blade and haft, and so was the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... it. Some blacks substitute for the barbless point four pieces of thin fencing wire—each about 4 inches long, bound tightly together at one end, the loose ends being sharpened and slightly diverged. This is fastened to the line and inserted in the socket of the haft, and when it hits it holds to the death, though the animal may weigh three-quarters ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... prepared for the prophetess. A porridge of goat's beestings was made for her, and for meat there were dressed the hearts of every kind of beast, which could be obtained there. She had a brass spoon, and a knife with a handle of walrus tusk, with a double hasp of brass around the haft, and from this the point was broken. And when the tables were removed, Yeoman Thorkel approaches Thorbiorg, and asks how she is pleased with the home, and the character of the folk, and how speedily she would be likely to become ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... of the finest Saracen steel work, the haft inlaid with gold. Inside it the knight wished to conceal some jewels of no very great value, in a hollow made for the purpose and opened by twisting a round boss on the hilt. This was often done by travelers, ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... may be applied to a number of uses, and among others it may be readily converted into a haft or handle for any kind of tailed or shanked tool, such as files, wrenches, olive bits, chisels, or screwdrivers, and may also serve as pincers or nippers. It is of ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... the axe and closely examined this formidable weapon. It was, as I have said, of the nature of a pole-axe. The haft, made out of an enormous rhinoceros horn, was three feet three inches long, about an inch and a quarter thick, and with a knob at the end as large as a Maltese orange, left there to prevent the hand from slipping. This horn haft, though so massive, was as flexible as cane, and practically unbreakable; ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... two hours. He was resting. To be explicit, he was standing on a fallen tree. Between his feet there was a notch cut half-way through the wood. In this white gash the blade of his axe was driven solidly, and he rested his hands on the rigid haft while he stood drawing gulps of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... O King, who have often held it in my hand. The end of the haft is gnawed, for when he was angry the Black One used to bite it. Also a thumb's length from the blade is a black mark made with hot iron. Once the Black One made a bet with one of his captains that at a distance of ten paces he would ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... pitiful plea. His deep chest swelled and throbbed; into his face crept the look that had been there on that day when he told Pascherette he loved her—loved her, yet worshiped Dolores as his gods. Letting the ax fall to his elbow by the thong at the haft, he stooped and tenderly picked up the girl, carrying her as a child carries a doll; yet his face was averted from Pascherette's passionate lips ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... remained in Richard's wound. He silently assisted the Prince in lifting Richard to the cushions of the couch, and the low groan convinced them that he lived: looked anxiously for the wound. The dagger had gone deep between the ribs, and little but the haft could ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... snowy vesture of transparent woof, Graceful, redundant; to her waist she bound Her golden zone, and veil'd her beauteous head, Then, musing, plann'd the noble Chief's return. She gave him, fitted to the grasp, an ax 280 Of iron, pond'rous, double-edg'd, with haft Of olive-wood, inserted firm, and wrought With curious art. Then, placing in his hand A polish'd adze, she led, herself, the way To her isles' utmost verge, where tallest trees But dry long since and sapless stood, which best Might serve his purposes, as buoyant most, The alder, poplar, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... fitted to the grasp, an axe Of iron, ponderous, double-edged, with haft Of olive-wood inserted firm, and wrought With curious art. Then placing in his hand A polished adze, she led herself the way To her isle's utmost verge, where loftiest stood The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir, Though sapless, sound, and fittest for his use, As buoyant most. To ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... board they saw a fair bed; whereon lay a crown of silk, and at the foot was a fair and rich sword drawn from its scabbard half a foot and more. The pommel was of precious stones of many colours, every colour having a different virtue, and the scales of the haft were of two ribs of different beasts. The one was bone of a serpent from Calidone forest, named the serpent of the fiend; and its virtue saveth all men who hold it from weariness. The other was of a fish that haunteth the floods of Euphrates, named Ertanax; and its ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... attached to a straight, instead of a curved, handle, and in usually being sharp on both edges instead of only on one. These are made in various sizes (Fig. 46, a, b), and the blades flat, curved on the flat, or curved at an angle with the edges of the haft. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... little sick as he watched Ennar's hand go to the haft of the ax. Nothing had been said about Ennar's not using his weapons in defense, but Ross discovered that there was some sense of sportmanship in the tribesmen, after all. It was Tulka who pushed to the chief's side and said something which made Foscar roar bull-voiced ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... deep gash across his forehead. About twenty Mexicans, dead and dying, were lying at his feet. The juggler was also there dead. With one hand he was clenching the hair of a dead Mexican, while with the other he had driven his knife to the haft in the ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... contemplations, went mad like common bravos at the sight of plunder. No man thought of the greater treasure which these gold things warded. We laughed and cried like children, and tore at the plated dead.... I mind how I wrenched off one jewelled face with the haft of my dagger, and a thin trickle of bones fell inside.... And yet, as we ravened and plundered we would fall into fits of shivering, for the thing was not of this world. Often a man would stop and fall to weeping. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... what there thou seest.' 'My lord,' said Bedivere, 'Your commandment shall be done; and lightly bring you word again.' So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and the haft was all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, 'If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.' And then Sir Bedivere hid Excaliber under a tree. And so, as soon as he might, he came ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... till his hand came in contact with about two feet of the haft standing out of the thatch, and he began tugging at it to draw it forth. "Won't come, won't you? All right, then, go;" and catching hold of the bamboo staff with his left hand, he doubled his fist and turned his right ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... instants. The boy propped his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... that it was out of use, the woods enjoyed a respite from further damage. At last the man came humbly and begged of the forest to allow him gently to take just one branch wherewith to make him a new haft, and promised that then he would go elsewhere to ply his trade and get his living. That would leave unthreatened many an oak and many a fir that now won universal respect on account of its age ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... showing between the white facings of an open infantry tunic. His nether limbs encased in a pair of dragoon overalls, with vivid green patches on the knees. Was there ever such a picture of savage good nature and childishness as the giant Willem swung the great bamboo haft of his whip above his head, and chided or exhorted his team straining in the drift! "Come up, Buller," to a favourite ass. "Kruger, you scellum," to a refractory lead, while the great thong cracked like a pistol as the leather ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... theron, saying, that you meane to cast all those three Balls into your mouth at once: and holding a knife as a penne in your hand, when he is laying vpon the poynt of your knife, you may easily with the haft rap him on the fingers, for the other matter will be ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid

... that lay there. Trembling all over with excitement, I made a mad thrust. Then I yelled, and stamped on the fish, getting all wet in doing so. I beat its head in with the haft of the fork. It rolled over, its white belly glinting in the sun. On picking it up, I was disappointed. It had been dead for a long time; had probably swam in there to die ... and its gills were a withered brown-black in colour, like a desiccated ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... stove with his towel last week sos everything would be neet for inspecshun. Angus got hold of it in the dark next mornin. Gee, youd haft ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter

... and yo all both wants ter know th' same thing. Well ah reckon since yo all is been comin' roun' and tawkin' to ole Uncle Marion ah cud make hit answer th' one question fuh both uv yo fuh fo' bits 'tween yo. No'm ah caint bring hit out heah. Yo all will haft tuh come inside ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... commanded. And when the Cid saw this, he ordered his banner to be advanced, and bade his people lay on manfully. The Bishop Don Hieronynio he pricked forward; two Moors he slew with the two first thrusts of the lance; the haft broke, and he laid hand on his sword, God,... how well the Bishop fought! two he slew with the lance and five with the sword; the Moors came round about him and laid on load of blows, but they could not pierce his arms. He who was born in happy hour had his eyes upon him, and he took ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... left for his friend to do.' 'Was the diamond you speak of a very valuable one?' I asked. 'It was a green diamond of immense value,' answered Rung; 'it was called The Great Hara because of its colour, and it was first worn by the terrible Aureng-Zebe himself, who had it set in the haft of his scimitar.' 'But by what means did Captain Chillington become possessed of so valuable a stone?' Said he, 'Two years ago, at the risk of his own life, he rescued the eldest son of the Rajah of Gondulpootra from a tiger who had ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... the women to prevent the PADI being choked by weeds. The women of each room will go over each patch completely at least twice, at an interval of about one month, hoeing down the weeds with a short-handled hoe; the hoe consists of a flat blade projecting at right angles from the iron haft (Fig. 13). The latter is bent downwards at a right angle just above the blade, in a plane perpendicular to that of the blade, and its other end is prolonged by a short wooden handle, into the end of which it is thrust. The woman stoops to the work, hoeing carefully round each ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... such as this, that I was waked suddenly by a great and mighty sound; and I came instant to a possessing of my senses; and I knew that the mighty Voice of the Home-Call did go howling across the Night. And, swift and silent, I slid the cloak from about me, and took the haft of that ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... Depositions from the Cross, Pietas, Noli-me-tangeres, or the Sacrifice of Abraham, or martyrdoms of saints, originally painted as altar-pieces, or for the shrines of chapels, and woefully lacking the accompaniments which the artist haft in view. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Still it was not the intent men or the stately clustering pines that she recalled most clearly; it was the dominant central figure, standing almost statuesque, with head tilted slightly backward, and both hands clenched on the big ax haft. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... began to prove troublesome, for the flowing blood covered the haft of the knife and made it slippery. This came near proving fatal for the American youth. Again the blades clashed, and, with a twisting movement, the Mexican wrenched Merry's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... shoulder—see! here is its scar; yes, to this day. And my assegai? Ah! it went home; it ran through and through his middle. He rolled over and over on the plain. The dust hid him; only I was now weaponless, for the haft of my spear—it was but a light throwing assegai—broke in two, leaving nothing but a little bit of stick in my hand. And the other one was upon me. Then in the darkness I saw a light. I fell on ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... "New haft, new blade, like Jeannot's knife, and yet you think that he is still the same man," broke in Bixiou. "So there are several lozenges in the harlequin's coat that we call happiness; and—well, there was neither hole nor stain in this ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... temptation to gloat over his victim from his present height was irresistible. He went up another step, and sat down on the very summit of the ladder, his feet resting on one of the lower rounds. The hammer he had been using was lying on his thigh, his hand clutched about its haft. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... skin of some wild beast but the cord which tied it was a stout one, and in the belt thus formed was stuck a weapon of such quality as men have rarely carried since. It was a stone ax; an ax heavier than any battle-ax of mediaeval times, its haft a scant three feet in length, inclosing the ax through a split in the tough wood, all being held in place by a taut and hardened mass of knotted sinews. It was a fearful weapon, but one only to be wielded by such a man as this, one with arms almost as mighty ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... the ape-man with never a pause, straight for the lion. "Go away, Numa," he cried, "or Tarzan will tie you up again and lead you through the jungle without food. See Arad, my spear! Do you recall how his point stuck into you and how with his haft I beat you over the head? Go, Numa! I am ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of those long blades of steel that hewed through shield and spear-haft as though they ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat. And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: and the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, for he drew not the sword out of his belly; and it came out behind." Then Ehud locked the doors and escaped. "Now when he was gone out, his ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... menace in his words and Jason understood why. The city Pyrrans hated the "grubbers" and, without a doubt, the feeling was mutual. Naxa's ax had proved that. Naxa had entered silently while they talked, and stood with his fingers touching the haft of this same ax. Jason knew his life was still in jeopardy, until he gave an answer that satisfied ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... of the fire. Raked with me, prized with me, Till on a sudden Besparked and encircled With Welsh or with Wallsend, Shattering, battering They drew me away. Others in rivalry, Thinking to better The previous performance, Seized me again; Pushed with a leverage Hard on the haft of me, Till with the shocks Sank the red fire, Shivered and sank Subdued into blackness. That is my Toil; I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various

... came capering, but there was blood in my eyes and my knee hurt me, so when one of them stuck his spear almost up to the haft in my side, I tossed him. I took him up lightly on my tusks and he lay still at the far end of the ravine where I had dropped him. That stopped the shouting; but it broke out again suddenly, for the women had come down the wild ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... but he knew not with whom he had to deal. Bishop Hieronymo led the right wing, and made havoc in the ranks of the foe. "The bishop pricked forward," we are told. "Two Moors he slew with the first two thrusts of his lance; the haft broke and he laid hold on his sword. God! how well the bishop fought. He slew two with the lance and five with the sword. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran off together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... Arnutt, Dick Vaughan, Jan, and one town constable were alone in the little littered room of the tragedy, where the dead lay practically as they had been discovered. Two incriminating articles only had been found: a sheath-knife with a carved haft, and a black soft felt hat. There was no name or initials on either, and both might conceivably have belonged to the murdered man. As yet no one had identified either article with any owner. The hat had been trodden down by a boot-heel in a slither ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... have hated to lose her good opinion. She consulted him in all her little difficulties. If the leg of the kitchen table got wobbly, she knew he would put in new screws for her. When she broke a handle off her rolling pin, he put on another, and he fitted a haft to her favourite butcher-knife after every one else said it must be thrown away. These objects, after they had been mended, acquired a new value in her eyes, and she liked to work with them. When Claude helped her lift or carry anything, he never avoided touching ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... sending a noble as his hostage. He went immediately on shore, and was kindly used by the king, who promised him a free trade, and cloathed him after the fashion of the country, giving him likewise a criss of honour. This criss is a dagger, having a haft or handle of a kind of metal of fine lustre esteemed far beyond gold, and set with rubies. It is death to wear a criss of this kind, except it has been given by the king; and he who possesses it is at absolute ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... when dey wus rich. Now dey air po as Job's turkey, dey wants us Dutchmans an po bocras to dhrive oud our meat an' bread so dey kin demselfs git fat at de public crib. But I tells you dis: Schults will haft nodding to do mit dem. I stays in mine house, mine house is mine castle, and ef dey wants me let dem cum to mine house, by dams I fills dem full uv lead; yo kin put dat in yo pipe and shmoke id." George Howe arose, yawned, then ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... singular and wild display of prodigal and ill judged ornaments, blended with his motley attire. In place of the usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silken sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife was profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of his cap was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttons of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of Mexico; the stock of his rifle ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... feet, much less did it break, so light was his tread.) Teithi Hen the son of Gwynhan (his dominions were swallowed by the sea, and he himself barely escaped, and he came to Arthur; and his knife had this peculiarity: from the time he came there no haft would ever remain on it; and owing to this a sickness came on him, and he pined away during the remainder of his life, and of this he died.) Drem the son of Dremidyd (when the gnat arose in the morning with the sun, Drem could see it from Gelli Wis in Cornwall as ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... left her neck and arms bare. Around her white throat she placed a black velvet band, and joined it by a small jet poniard studded with diamonds. Her sunny hair was wound into a severely simple coil, and also fastened with a larger poniard, from the haft and guard of which glistened diamonds of peculiar brilliancy. She took off all her rings, and wore no other ornaments. Then taking from her table a book, bearing conspicuously as its title the word "Misjudged," she went ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... that seemed colder even than the icy air clutched at my heart. O' course, I didn't have any weapon with me, except as you might call my axe one. I looked around fer it, and saw that it had fallen about three feet farther than I could stretch, and lay half buried in the snow, only the haft stickin' out. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... true. The point struck the Neanderthaler at the junction of his neck and shoulder. As it struck, the haft flew from the spear and bounded down the slope. The first point made only ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... who gave him the water-dress, and crystal helmet, and shining spear on the banks of the Boyne, slid into his room, and she placed beside his couch a silver helmet and a silver shield. And she rubbed the helmet, and the shield, and the blue blade and haft of his spear with the juice of the red rowan berries, and she let a drop fall upon his face and hands, and then she slid out as ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... Good Justice Dudgeon-haft, and crab-tree face, With bills and staues had scar'd hir from the place; And now she was compel'd, for Sanctuarie, To flye unto a house ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash

... impulse. He could hardly restrain himself, as he heard those horrible, incredible words, and saw the loathsome smirk on the speaker's face by which they were accompanied, from leaping then and there at the savage's throat, and plunging his blade to the haft into the vile creature's body. But by a violent effort he mastered his indignation and wrath for the present. Planting himself full in front of Tu-Kila-Kila, and blocking the way to the door of that sacred English girl's hut—oh, how horrible it was to him even to think of her purity being ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... the spear, feeling the knife point go home so deeply that he could not pull his improvised weapon free. A limb snapped claws only inches away from his leg as he pushed down on the haft with all his strength. That attack along with the initial upset of balance did the job. The shell flopped over, its rounded hump now embedded in the watery sand of the pit while the frantic struggles of the creature to right itself only ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... knife," suggested some one. "I know it; because it once belonged to me. If you look you'll find his name on the haft. He graved it there the very day he bought ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... an attire so whimsical and uncommon, however, a pair of small and richly-mounted pistols were at the stranger's girdle; and the haft, of a curiously-carved Asiatic dagger was seen projecting, rather ostentatiously, from between the folds of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... his spurs and thinketh to pass him by, but the other hasteth him, and smiteth the squire in the left side with the knife and thrusteth it into his body up to the haft. The squire, that lay in the hall at Cardoil, and had dreamed this, awoke and cried in a loud voice: "Holy Mary! The priest! Help! Help, for ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... into a peak behind his head. In his hands he held a goad of polished red-yew, furnished with a crooked hand-grip of gold, and pointed with shining bronze, and where the bronze met the timber there was a circlet of diamond of the diamonds of Banba. He had also a short-handled scourge with a haft of walrus tooth, and the rope, cord, and lash of that scourge were made of delicate and delicately-twisted thread of copper. This equipment was the equipment of a proved charioteer; the apprentices ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... one hand from the red-smeared paddle-haft, and glanced at it. "If you feel diffident, don't worry about me," he said. "Eight hours' hard labour while you're wet through is, in my opinion, quite enough ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... a grave voice, like a judge's, and a quick, pert eye, like a jackdaw's. Outwardly he was as unlike Margaret as the haft of a pike is unlike a lily, but I already saw her spirit ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... with hairy chest showing under his unbuttoned cotton shirt, had the face and bearing of a buccaneer chieftain; and the effect was intensified by a flaring red handkerchief around his head and the haft of a knife protruding from his waistband. The rowers behind him, though of varying degrees of swarthiness and height, all had the same sinewy build, the same bold stare, the same devil-may-care insolence of manner; and though none but the lookout wore the piratical red around his brow, more than ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... were an impenetrable cover behind which to move unseen, a shield in making assaults, and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. In the conquest of the west the backwoods axe, shapely, well-poised, with long haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even to the rifle; the two were the national weapons of the American backwoodsman, and in their use ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... no need to ask his name, however, for in one hand he carried a weapon such as had seldom seen the light since powder had come to Ireland. It was an ax, some five feet from haft to helve; double-bladed, each blade eight inches long, curved back slightly, and two inches thick by twice as much wide. The edges, which came down sharply from the thickness, were not overkeen, and were not meant to be so. When the thing struck, ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... at a loss for words, and sent his knife whirling into the air where it spun at an alarming rate. I edged my chair nearer the door, but the potato-peeler, suddenly standing upright, caught the weapon by the haft as it circled and bent ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... and taking a step or two forward with the axe he had snatched from the carpenter's hand, he made one quick cut and drove it into the earth, for the blade to be struck at once by the serpent's head, while the ugly coils were instantaneously knotted round the haft. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... the Palaeolithic hand-axe. The latter is not known to have been hafted, and its working edges were at the pointed end; whereas in Neolithic times the implement had become an axe in the modern sense, with the pointed end inserted in a haft, and the cutting edge removed to the broader end. There are many other Neolithic types, used with or without a haft, and only a small proportion were finished by ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... the block of jasper, the ancient stone of sacrifice. Zoraida went by first; Kendric was passing when an impulse prompted him to put out a sudden hand for the keen edged knife of obsidian. He slipped it into his belt and hid the haft with his coat. If it came to an ambush, to an attack in the dark, a revolver bullet might fly wild while the wide sweep of a knife blade would somehow find a sheath in something ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... feel those papers in his hands had driven out all regard for art. He lifted the axe on high and brought it down on the top of the chest with a blow which made the little room echo. He was a powerful man, and the axe was imbedded to its haft. He worked it out of the tough wood and planted another blow, which widened the rift and made the stout old chest creak like a falling tree. The mutilated wood acted upon Dartmouth like the smell of blood upon a wolf: ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... certain that if the primeval man sketched the mammoth he likewise carved his spear-shaft, the haft of his knife, the handle of his 'celt,' that chisel-like weapon whose shape so closely resembles the front teeth. The 'celt' is a front tooth in flint or bronze, enlarged and fitted to a handle for chipping, splitting, and general work. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... "Climatic Variations in Historic and Prehistoric Times." Svenska Hydrogrifisk—Biologiska Kommissioneur Skrifter, Haft ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... he would have devoured me at that instant time." In the extremity of his terror, he tried to run away from the awful monster; but, as might have been expected under the circumstances, he tumbled to the ground. "I fell down upon my hip, and my knife run into my hip up to the haft. When I came home, my knife was in my sheath. When I drew it out of the sheath, then immediately the sheath fell all to pieces." And further this deponent testifieth, that, after he got up from his fall, his stocking ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... of Mindanao, like their clothes, are manufactured by themselves. The spears and campilans are said to be finely tempered. They themselves adjust the dies for their pataquias. The sheaths, like the hafts of their krises, are of gold richly engraved. The haft of the kris used by Dato Ayuman of Tabiran was of solid gold, and was engraved with sentences from the Koran in Arabic characters. The usual weapons are: campilans, krises (straight and wavy), machetes, bolos, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... His Waggon on their letters beares Charles Waine, Charles Waine, to which they fay the tayle will reach And at this diftance they both heare, and teach. Now for the peace of God and men, advise (Thou that haft wherewithall to make us wise) Thine owne rich ftudies, and deepe Harriots mine, In which there is no drosse, but all refine, O tell us what to trust to, lest we wax All stiffe and tupid with his paralex ; Say, shall the old Philofophy ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens

... is the old English broad-head. Starting from small dimensions, we have gradually increased its size, weight and strength and cutting qualities till now we shoot a head whose blade is three inches long, an inch and a quarter wide, a trifle less than a thirty-second thick. It has a haft or tubular shank an inch long. Its weight is half an ounce. The blades are made of spring steel. After annealing the steel we score it diagonally with a hack saw, when it may be broken in triangular pieces in a vise. With a cold chisel, an angular cut ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... be blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the King's Oak into billets to heat a brown baker's oven; and we will dispark your park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, neither shall you have any portion thereof, whether in neck or haunch. Ye shall not haft a ten-penny knife with the horns thereof, neither shall ye cut a pair of breeches out of the hide, for all ye be cutlers and glovers; and ye shall have no comfort or support neither from the sequestered ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... had seized the haft of his tomahawk, and was holding his bridle rein ready to make a desperate charge forward to a ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... they gained the platform and the great cave beyond; and they found that no man had set foot there since the day when Eric had striven with Skallagrim. For there on the rock, rotten with the weather, lay that haft of wood which Brighteyes had hewed from the axe of Skallagrim, and in the cave were many things beside as ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... ancient glorious days through a legend concerning the two daughters of Yezdezard, Khatun Banu and Hyat Banu, who had at one time disappeared without leaving any trace behind them. After the fall of the king, his family, finding no protection in Madain, had taken refuge in the citadel of Haft Ajar; but they were soon obliged to disperse. Meher Banu shut herself up in the fortress of Gorab; Khatun Banu directed her steps to more secret places. In her hasty march the princess, exhausted and dying of thirst, met a burzigar ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... Gajpati king to employ them as soldiers. The king caused two sheaths of swords to be placed before them, and telling them that one contained a sword and the other a bullock-goad, asked them to select one and by their choice to determine whether they would be soldiers or husbandmen. From one sheath a haft of gold projected and from the other one of silver. The Agharias pulled out the golden haft and found that they had chosen the goad. The point of the golden and silver handles is obvious, and the story is of some interest for the distant resemblance ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... body over face downwards, quickly and with all the dexterity of a seaman secured the arms together at the wrists, and the feet at the ankles; after which I lashed the heels and hands close together, rolled the body back as far as it would come, and thrust into the mouth, as a gag, the long haft of his murderous sheath-knife, securing it in position by means of the handkerchief which he wore ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... canoes for horses and showed the Overlanders how to put rafts together to run the Fraser. Axes had been worn almost to the haft. Cutting the huge trees and splitting them into suitable timbers was slow work. It was September before the rafts were ready to be launched. There were four. Each had a heavy railing round it like that of a ferry, with some flat stones on which fires could be ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut

... to the shore and ran out a six-oared boat, and held in his hand a great axe that he had with a haft overlaid with iron. He steps into the boat and rows out to the Bear-isles, and when he got there all the men had rowed away but Thorwald and his followers, and he stayed by the skiff to load her, while they brought the goods down to him. So Thiostolf ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... beyond the palisade. A half smile touched Korak's lips. He turned his head a trifle in the direction from which the sound had come and then there broke from his lips, a low, weird call. One of the blacks guarding him struck him across the mouth with the haft of his spear; but none there knew the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... moreover, he was never without half a dozen hooks and lines in his pockets. He left his business at once, and went up to the apron to assist in taking the two-pound trout. A pole was cut, and a couple of feet of line, with a hook attached, was fastened a little way from the top, and the haft of the hook stuck into the end so that by a little force it might be removed, and Tom and his friend got upon the apron, and stooped over to see where the ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... Douglas, "that you would be a proper man of your lance when you had laid a score or two bolls of good Galloway meal to your ribs. English beef and beer are excellent, and drive a lance home into an unarmed foe; but it needs good Scots oats at the back of the spear-haft to make the sparks fly when knight meets with knight and ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... the fire should have been blazing, and faintly illuminated by a glow from the earth, the watchers caught sight of the face of the Illaka, looking strange and ruddy, while as the black stirred up the ashes with the haft of his spear there was enough life in them to emit a bluish golden flame which caught the twigs he threw on. The light cast upon him increased, and in a few minutes he had augmented the fire by throwing on armfuls of wood, till there was a fierce blaze which lit up the edge of the ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... empty barrel with its head upward, banged the loaf down upon it, drew a knife from its sheath in his belt, and counted the prisoners over with the point of the blade. He then drew a few imaginary lines upon the top of the loaf, paused to rub his woolly head with the haft, looking puzzled and as if cutting the loaf into as many pieces as there were prisoners bothered him, and ended by making a dash at ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... set; her eyes hardened. "While we're putting out information, take note that I'm just as good with actual knives as with figurative ones. If you're still thinking of blistering my fanny, don't try it. You'll find a rawhide haft sticking up out of one of those muscles you're so ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... (lifting down the great bill) Let me but reach this haft, I shall get hold Of steel enough to fence ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... CVIII., Fig. 1.] Some were made with two blades, like the bipennis of the Romans. and the labra of the Lydians and Carians; others more nearly resembled the weapons used by our own knights in the middle ages, having a single blade, and a mere ornamental point on the other side of the haft. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... traveller cares to encumber himself with one; but a butcher's knife, carried in a sheath, is excellent, both from its efficient shape, the soft quality of The steel, its lightness, and the strong way in which the blade is set in the haft. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... too, had his head bent down in sleep. On a golden throne on the further side of the round table was a king of gigantic stature and august presence. In his hand, held below the hilt, was a mighty sword with scabbard and haft of gold studded with gleaming gems; on his head was a crown set with precious stones which flashed and glinted like so many points of fire. Sleep had set its seal on ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... the one great predominant purpose of all—a conquering army which was to intimidate the world. The army was the spearpoint of Prussia; the rest was merely the haft. That was what we had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves of Europe. They knew what it all meant. It was an army that in recent times had waged three wars, all of conquest, and the unceasing tramp of its legions through the streets of Prussia, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... replied Pan faintly. He tottered on his feet, and his right hand was pressed tight to his left shoulder, high up, where the broken haft of the paper knife showed ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... arms shot up, his hands catching the haft and wrenching the ugly weapon away from ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... for the knife, and the sharp blade was wrenched through his hand, cutting to the bone. The Cheyenne stabbed him many times, and many times Mahtotohpa clutched the knife blade again, before he could tear the haft from ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... of the shining haft and the dark blue blade and the silver shield," said the Fairy. "They are on the farther bank of the Mystic Lake in the Island of the Western Seas. They are there for the man who is bold enough to seek them. If you are the man who will bring them ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... flash Harry caught from the mailed glove the haft of the sword. As he rushed across the room the Chinese withered away from him. There was a crash as the great sword fell upon one of the windows. Through the broken pane Harry shouted for help. His voice was like a ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 55 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, 60 In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd Better to leave Excalibur ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the blood of that helpless and unoffending old man who loved you and whom you all loved. There is but one man in the whole earth whose hand can duplicate that crimson sign"—he paused and raised his eyes to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... she takes the heavy shaft From the hunter's cruel hand; With the murderous weapon's haft Furrowing the light-strown sand,— Takes from out her garland's crown, Filled with life, one single grain, Sinks it in the furrow down, And ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... end of the haft, pointed to a delicate design of a centipede, and then looked down at the back of the savage upon the ground. The similarity of the two designs was immediately apparent, but while the one on the greenstone had been executed ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... didn' jump it we'd catch hit. O-o-o-o-oooo. We had ter run. He line up two at a time an he say one fuh de money, two fuh de show, three tuh make ready and fo' tuh go. An yo talk bout runnin. We had ter run. He would make us box and de one dat git whooped is de one dat would haft ter box till he got whooped and we had ter whoop three times befo' stoppin. Oh chile, ah had a time when ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... oenskvaerd, ehuru densamma vanligen boerjar vid omkring tretton intill femton ars alder; emellertid beror dervid mycket pa flickans kroppsbyggnad. Om hon natt denna alder och aennu icke haft rening, boer modren faesta saerskild uppmaerksamhet dervid; hennes dotter blir antagligen mager och blek, med en egendomlig gulblek hy och hon blir ett saekert och laett offer foer lungsot och nervoes nedslagenhet. Ingenting i verlden naer upp till Lydia E. ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... knife from a sheath at his belt. It had a long, bright blade. Joan had seen him use it many a time round the camp-fire. He slipped the blade up his sleeve, retaining the haft of the knife in his hand. He did not speak another word. Nor did he glance at Joan again. She had felt his gaze while she had embraced him, as she raised her lips. That look had been his last. Then he went out. Jim knelt beside the door, peering ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... officer who had removed his armor had not been foolish enough to remove his weapons too; no sane man did that in hostile territory. His hand went to the haft of the blade ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... "Gorky" twice in one night, it is useless to argue. I gave in at once. "Butter," I said, "placed upon the haft of the javelin, would make it slip, and put him off his shot. He would miss the Secretary and marry the niece." So we put a good deal of butter on Sir Arthur, and for the moment the Secretary is safe. I don't know if we shall be able to keep it there; ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... which we believed to be that which runs through the country of Saguenay. One of the natives, without any sign or question made to him, took hold of the silver chain of our captains whistle, and the dagger haft of one of the mariners, which was of gilt brass, giving us to understand that such metals came from that river, where there were evil people named Agouionda, armed even to their finger ends, shewing us the way in which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... a helm of copper, On his feet were boots of copper, On his hands were copper gauntlets. Gloves adorned with copper tracings; 120 Round his waist his belt was copper; In his belt his axe was copper; And the haft thereof was thumb-long, And ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... the dwarf raised his hand to his brow for the smart, Ere the iron well out was beat, And they found that the haft by an inch was too short, But to alter it then ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork. His knees were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near it ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle

... tied it loosely around his leg, just above the ankle. Then he thrust his knife between the improvised rope and the leg, forming a crude tourniquet. He twisted the knife until tears of pain formed in his eyes. Then he fastened the knife by tucking the haft under the rope. His movements had been very deliberate, but sure, and in a few minutes he hobbled to his pony and ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... had given it to Fred Munson when he was left alone with the mustang. So, as he had nothing but his knife, he placed his hand upon the haft, glaring defiantly at his enemies, while he continued walking slowly backward, and gradually edging toward the side of the grove. But Apaches were plenty in that latitude, and the business had scarcely opened when three or four warriors commenced a stealthy approach upon the ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... while his fingers reclosed on the haft, Jarring concussion and earth shaking din, Horse 'counter'd horse, and I reel'd, but he laugh'd, Down went his man, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... am at last," said Jack, as he took the axe, pulled it off its haft, and stuffed both head and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... had time to answer him, a spear haft rang on the great teak double door. There was a pause, and the clang repeated—another pause—a third reverberating, humming metal notice of an interruption, and the doors swung wide. A Hindoo, salaaming low so that the expression of his face could not be seen, called out ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... when Harald Kaas, seated in his log chair by the fireside, his feet on the bearskin, opened his shirt to show us the scars on his hairy chest (and what scars they were!) which had been made by the bear's teeth, when he had driven his knife, right up to the haft, into the monster's heart. All the queer tankards, and cupboards, and carved chairs listened with ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... in is another highly unpopular fatigue. First of all you produce your portable entrenching-tool—it looks like a combination of a modern tack-hammer and a medieval back-scratcher—and fit it to its haft. Then you lie flat upon your face on the wet grass, and having scratched up some small lumps of turf, proceed to build these into a parapet. Into the hole formed by the excavation of the turf you then put your head, and in this ostrich-like posture await ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... the white facings of an open infantry tunic. His nether limbs encased in a pair of dragoon overalls, with vivid green patches on the knees. Was there ever such a picture of savage good nature and childishness as the giant Willem swung the great bamboo haft of his whip above his head, and chided or exhorted his team straining in the drift! "Come up, Buller," to a favourite ass. "Kruger, you scellum," to a refractory lead, while the great thong cracked like a pistol as the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewelry. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seemed Better to leave Excalibur ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the skeleton. It was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he had dug it up (it was the haft of his pickax that lay broken in the excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the northeast angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... expression of his mouth and lips, that presented rather a pleasant and smiling contour. But the man's features, when viewed as a whole, could not fail to inspire a certain feeling of repulsiveness mingled with fear. A short carbine that lay by his side, together with the long knife, whose haft protruded above the top of his boots, did not in any way tame down the ferocious aspect of his face. On the contrary they proclaimed him one whom it would not be desirable to have for ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... me out into the garden, and to a tangled heap lying in the moonlight, on the edge of the long grass. The slave had fallen on top of his master; one leg lay swathed and twisted; one black hand had but partially relaxed upon the haft of a knife (the knife) that stood up hilt-deep in a blacker heart. And in the hand of Santos was still the revolver (my Deane and Adams) which had sent its last ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... foot and more; and the sword was of divers fashions, and the pommel was of stone, and there was in him all manner of colours that any man might find, and every each of the colours had divers virtues; and the scales of the haft were of two ribs of divers beasts, the one beast was a serpent which was conversant in Calidone, and is called the serpent of the fiend; and the bone of him is of such a virtue that there is no hand that handleth him shall never be weary nor hurt. And the other beast is a fish which is ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... the first chariot, with dark and bushy hair; a purple cloak round him, and a golden pin therein; a hooded tunic with gold embroidery on him; and a round shield with an engraved edge of white metal, and a broad spear-head, with rings from point to haft(?), in his hand. A sword as long as the rudder of a ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown

... forward with the axe he had snatched from the carpenter's hand, he made one quick cut and drove it into the earth, for the blade to be struck at once by the serpent's head, while the ugly coils were instantaneously knotted round the haft. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... but there was a murmuring, and all eyes were fixed upon the speaker, who, either by design or accident, leaned upon the haft of a ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... Bucar had commanded. And when the Cid saw this, he ordered his banner to be advanced, and bade his people lay on manfully. The Bishop Don Hieronynio he pricked forward; two Moors he slew with the two first thrusts of the lance; the haft broke, and he laid hand on his sword, God,... how well the Bishop fought! two he slew with the lance and five with the sword; the Moors came round about him and laid on load of blows, but they could not pierce his arms. He who was born in ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... boots—the tops of which rise several inches above the knee. A personage, rawboned, and of rough exterior, wearing a red blanket-coat; his trousers tucked into the aforesaid boots; with a leather belt buckled around his waist, under the coat, but over the haft of a bowie-knife, alongside which peeps out the butt of a Colt's revolving pistol. In correspondence with his clothing and equipment, he shows a cut-throat countenance, typical of the State Penitentiary; cheeks bloated as from excessive indulgence in drink; ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork. His knees were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle

... after having warned his friends and companions in arms to keep on the alert, prepared for the enterprise, and guided by Aulad, hurried on till he came to the Haft-koh, or Seven Mountains. There he found numerous companies of Demons; and coming to one of the caverns, saw it crowded with the same awful beings. And now consulting with Aulad, he was informed that the most advantageous time for attack would ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... that scratch began to prove troublesome, for the flowing blood covered the haft of the knife and made it slippery. This came near proving fatal for the American youth. Again the blades clashed, and, with a twisting movement, the Mexican wrenched Merry's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... the finest Saracen steel work, the haft inlaid with gold. Inside it the knight wished to conceal some jewels of no very great value, in a hollow made for the purpose and opened by twisting a round boss on the hilt. This was often done by travelers, since a man's ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... all the precious relics up, The golden buttons chased with wondrous craft, The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup, The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft. Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these Unnumbered long-forgotten histories, The deeds heroic of this mighty man, On whom once more the living daylight beams, To shame our littleness, to mock our dreams, And the abyss of centuries ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... turned his head a trifle in the direction from which the sound had come and then there broke from his lips, a low, weird call. One of the blacks guarding him struck him across the mouth with the haft of his spear; but none there knew the significance ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... thee," and then pulls out his hidden knife with that unsuspected left hand of his,—(the little gentleman lifted his clenched left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,)—and runs it, blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with these fellows, Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, if you were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions are not attacked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... growing chary of those long blades of steel that hewed through shield and spear-haft as though they ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... hand went to the haft of his distorter. The jewel seemed to rise of its own accord as ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole

... had apparently not yet found his spectacles, but he had in the meanwhile come upon his axe, and now stood very straight, with the long haft reaching ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... lonely wanderings about the island had found the skeleton—it was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he had dug it up (it was the haft of his pickaxe that lay broken in the excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of a tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the north-east angle of the island, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... been filled with high contemplations, went mad like common bravos at the sight of plunder. No man thought of the greater treasure which these gold things warded. We laughed and cried like children, and tore at the plated dead.... I mind how I wrenched off one jewelled face with the haft of my dagger, and a thin trickle of bones fell inside.... And yet, as we ravened and plundered we would fall into fits of shivering, for the thing was not of this world. Often a man would stop and fall to weeping. But the lust of gold consumed us, and presently we only ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... was irresistible. He went up another step, and sat down on the very summit of the ladder, his feet resting on one of the lower rounds. The hammer he had been using was lying on his thigh, his hand clutched about its haft. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... vise may be applied to a number of uses, and among others it may be readily converted into a haft or handle for any kind of tailed or shanked tool, such as files, wrenches, olive bits, chisels, or screwdrivers, and may also serve as pincers or nippers. It ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... managed to work the haft clear of the leather and his left hand was closing on it. His eyes told me that much. Instantly I changed my tactics. I dropped my left arm to seize his left wrist. I released his right wrist and with my free hand tore the weapon from ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... a big fish that lay there. Trembling all over with excitement, I made a mad thrust. Then I yelled, and stamped on the fish, getting all wet in doing so. I beat its head in with the haft of the fork. It rolled over, its white belly glinting in the sun. On picking it up, I was disappointed. It had been dead for a long time; had probably swam in there to die ... and its gills were a withered ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... fur yo when dey wus rich. Now dey air po as Job's turkey, dey wants us Dutchmans an po bocras to dhrive oud our meat an' bread so dey kin demselfs git fat at de public crib. But I tells you dis: Schults will haft nodding to do mit dem. I stays in mine house, mine house is mine castle, and ef dey wants me let dem cum to mine house, by dams I fills dem full uv lead; yo kin put dat in yo pipe and shmoke id." George Howe arose, ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... sheaths of swords to be placed before them, and telling them that one contained a sword and the other a bullock-goad, asked them to select one and by their choice to determine whether they would be soldiers or husbandmen. From one sheath a haft of gold projected and from the other one of silver. The Agharias pulled out the golden haft and found that they had chosen the goad. The point of the golden and silver handles is obvious, and the story is of some interest for the distant resemblance which it bears to the choice of the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... extends from Chaharmahal (west of Isfahan) in the E., to near Shushter in the W., and separated from Luristan in the N. by the Dizful river (Ab i Diz), and in the S touches Behbahan and Ram Hormuz. The Bakhtiari are divided into the two great divisions Haft-lang and Chahar-lang, and a number of branches and clans, and were known until the 15th century as the "Great Lurs," the "Little Lurs" being the tribes settled in the district now known as Luristan, with Khorremabad as capital. According to popular ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... underwater dumb show, that the find had only been made that very minute. It was a strange enough performance. Half-seen hands snapped red fingers in triumph. Ponderously booted feet did a dance of ecstasy in three feet of gluey mud. And meanwhile, Kettle, with a hand on the haft of his knife, edged away from this uncanny demonstration, lest some one should slit his air-tube before he could ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... other side of the stocke, in the other cleft, you shall place your other graft, with full as much care, diligence, and euery other obseruation: when both your grafts are thus orderly and arteficially placed, you shall then by setting the haft of your chissell against the stocke, with all lenitie and gentlenesse, draw forth your wedge, in such sort that you doe not displace or alter your grafts, and when your wedge is forth you shall then looke vpon your grafts, and if you perceiue ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... water, and come again and tell me what thou there seest." "My lord," said Sir Bedivere, "your commandment shall be done." So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and the haft were all of precious stones; and then he said to himself, "If I throw this rich sword into the water no good shall come thereof, but only harm and loss." And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibar under a tree. And so, as soon as he might, he came again to the king. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... country lad of Saxony swallowed it, point first. He came under the care of Weserern, physician to the Elector of Brandenburgh, who successfully extracted it, two years and seven months afterward, from the pit of the lad's stomach. The horn haft of the knife was considerably digested. In 1720 Hubner of Rastembourg operated on a woman who had swallowed an open knife. After the incision it was found that the knife had almost pierced the stomach and had excited a slight suppuration. After the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... sick as he watched Ennar's hand go to the haft of the ax. Nothing had been said about Ennar's not using his weapons in defense, but Ross discovered that there was some sense of sportmanship in the tribesmen, after all. It was Tulka who pushed to the chief's side and said something which made Foscar roar bull-voiced ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... advance met the enemy in a strong position in the Jugdulluck Pass and dispersed them; then at Tezeen, on 12th September, he was attacked by Akbar Khan with 20,000 men. The Pass was forced, and the Afghans retired to the Haft Kotal, where they were utterly defeated, close to the scene of Elphinstone's disaster. Nott arrived at Cabul ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... my broken sword All the long night through While I keep watch and ward! Then—the red fight through, Bless the wrenched haft for me, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... her, rather than remain to bear the scoffing of the fair smiling woman she so hated. Or, she would have stolen in by night to where Atossa slept, and the wicked-looking Indian knife she wore, would have gone down, swift and sure, to the very haft, into the queen's heart. She would not have borne tamely any slight upon her beauty or her claims. But, as it was, she reigned supreme. The king was just, and showed no difference in the state and attendance of the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... into his snowshoes and began to run. He held the axe in his hand, gripped near the haft. A couple of hundred yards, perhaps, lay between him and camp, which was just over the brow of a small hill. The bushes flew past as he swung to his stride. Never had he skimmed the crust faster, but his feet seemed to be weighted with lead. Then, as ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... pale brown marble; twice he half turned toward the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he laid his hand flat on the altar; the executioner unbent his bow and the arrow drooped from the painted haft and dangled there, its hammered iron war-head glinting in ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... silver. In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... hung a cloak of the skin of some wild beast but the cord which tied it was a stout one, and in the belt thus formed was stuck a weapon of such quality as men have rarely carried since. It was a stone ax; an ax heavier than any battle-ax of mediaeval times, its haft a scant three feet in length, inclosing the ax through a split in the tough wood, all being held in place by a taut and hardened mass of knotted sinews. It was a fearful weapon, but one only to be wielded by such a man as this, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... touched Shefford's arm and pointed at the haft of a knife protruding from Waggoner's breast. It was a wooden haft. Shefford had seen it ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... themselves. The spears and campilans are said to be finely tempered. They themselves adjust the dies for their pataquias. The sheaths, like the hafts of their krises, are of gold richly engraved. The haft of the kris used by Dato Ayuman of Tabiran was of solid gold, and was engraved with sentences from the Koran in Arabic characters. The usual weapons are: campilans, krises (straight and wavy), machetes, bolos, ligdaos, sundanes, various kinds of spears, balaraos, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... The two knives sped simultaneously with a vicious whir, and stood quivering, with their blades touching each other, in the centre of the white. At the next trial, so exactly had they been aimed that the point of the one hit upon the haft of the other and stripped the cork almost to the blade. But Jorian, to whom the knife belonged, mended it with a piece of string, telling the company philosophically that it was no bad thing to have a string hanging loose to a Tolleknife, for when it went into any one the string would ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Indian at the same instant had fired at the white man and then sprang forward to finish him with his tomahawk. Mrs. Pentry flew to the rescue and just as the savage lifted his arm to brain his foe, she drove her hunting knife to the haft into his spine. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... down the great bill) Let me but reach this haft, I shall get hold Of steel enough to fence me ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... the West, we thought it to be the riuer that runneth through the Countrey of Saguenay: and without any signe or question mooued or asked of them, they tooke the chayne of our Captaines whistle, which was of siluer, and the dagger haft of one of our fellow Mariners, hanging on his side being of yellow copper guilt, and shewed vs that such stuffe came from the said Riuer, and that there be Agouionda, that is as much to say, as euill people, who goe all armed euen to their ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... knife, you must bid a stander by, lay it theron, saying, that you meane to cast all those three Balls into your mouth at once: and holding a knife as a penne in your hand, when he is laying vpon the poynt of your knife, you may easily with the haft rap him on the fingers, for the other matter will ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid

... with Schwandorf, and a hard gang they were. The bowman, hawk nosed, slant eyed, black mustached, with hairy chest showing under his unbuttoned cotton shirt, had the face and bearing of a buccaneer chieftain; and the effect was intensified by a flaring red handkerchief around his head and the haft of a knife protruding from his waistband. The rowers behind him, though of varying degrees of swarthiness and height, all had the same sinewy build, the same bold stare, the same devil-may-care insolence of manner; and though none ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... of Gwynham—(his domains were swallowed up by the sea, and he himself hardly escaped, and he came to Arthur, and his knife had this peculiarity, that from the time that he came there no haft would ever remain upon it, and owing to this a sickness came over him, and he pined away during the remainder of his life, and of this ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... yo all ain't got much money and yo all both wants ter know th' same thing. Well ah reckon since yo all is been comin' roun' and tawkin' to ole Uncle Marion ah cud make hit answer th' one question fuh both uv yo fuh fo' bits 'tween yo. No'm ah caint bring hit out heah. Yo all will haft tuh ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... itself was chipped into form, it was one whose shape would indicate a spear-head or hatchet. We present illustrations of each. Forms intermediate between these two are found. Some have such a thick heavy base that it is believed they were used in the hand, and had no handle or haft. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... knife, and the sharp blade was wrenched through his hand, cutting to the bone. The Cheyenne stabbed him many times, and many times Mahtotohpa clutched the knife blade again, before he could tear the haft from the ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... passing the block of jasper, the ancient stone of sacrifice. Zoraida went by first; Kendric was passing when an impulse prompted him to put out a sudden hand for the keen edged knife of obsidian. He slipped it into his belt and hid the haft with his coat. If it came to an ambush, to an attack in the dark, a revolver bullet might fly wild while the wide sweep of a knife blade would somehow find a sheath in something more palpable ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... the hole. So they gained the platform and the great cave beyond; and they found that no man had set foot there since the day when Eric had striven with Skallagrim. For there on the rock, rotten with the weather, lay that haft of wood which Brighteyes had hewed from the axe of Skallagrim, and in the cave were many things beside as the Baresark had ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... was a spear, and belonged to him personally. He had brought it all the way from Nubia. It differed from any of the native spears of East Africa both in form and in weight. Its blade was broad and shaped like a leaf; its haft was of wood; and its heel was shod with only the briefest length of iron. Chake kept this spear in a high state of polish, so that its metal shone like silver. He lifted it, poised it, made as though to throw it, to thrust with it. Then ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... to a straight, instead of a curved, handle, and in usually being sharp on both edges instead of only on one. These are made in various sizes (Fig. 46, a, b), and the blades flat, curved on the flat, or curved at an angle with the edges of the haft. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... with his spear gripped in both hands, he rushed upon Sir Mordred and smote him that the weapon stood out a fathom behind. And Sir Mordred knew that he had his death wound. With all the might that he had, he thrust him up the spear to the haft and, with his sword, struck King Arthur upon the head, that the steel pierced the helmet and bit into the head; then Mordred ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... and tell me what thou there seest. My lord, said Bedivere, your commandment shall be done, and lightly bring you word again. So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss. And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree. And as soon as he might he came again unto the king, and ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... pursuits. There was, however, a singular and wild display of prodigal and ill judged ornaments, blended with his motley attire. In place of the usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silken sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife was profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of his cap was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttons of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of Mexico; the stock of his rifle was of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a savage and revengeful scowl, and with a fierce, yet hesitating motion, laid his hand on the haft of his knife; but the interference of Prior Aymer, who pushed his mule betwixt his companion and the swineherd, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... legendary Amazons. The blade of each axe-head was shaped like a crescent moon. From the inner side projected a flat, thick shank, by which the blade was fastened to the helve. The curve of each blade made almost a half circle, the tips of the crescents almost touched the haft between them, so that their outer cutting-edges made a nearly complete circle of razor-sharp steel, from which protruded the keen spear-head tipping ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... and I prophesy that it will bring thee into disgrace with Father Francis, as once about the black-eyed Syrian wench. But here comes the horn. Be active a bit, man, wilt thou, and just force open his teeth with the haft of thy dudgeon-dagger." ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... opinion. She consulted him in all her little difficulties. If the leg of the kitchen table got wobbly, she knew he would put in new screws for her. When she broke a handle off her rolling pin, he put on another, and he fitted a haft to her favourite butcher-knife after every one else said it must be thrown away. These objects, after they had been mended, acquired a new value in her eyes, and she liked to work with them. When Claude helped her ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... half-way Over the rims and bosses of their shields:— So close the fight was now, that from their rims Unto their centres were their shields cut through, And loosed was every rivet from its hold; So close the fight was now, that their strong spears Were turned and bent and shivered point and haft; Such was the closeness of the fight they made That the invisible and unearthly hosts Of Spirits, Bocanachs and Bananachs, And the wild wizard people of the glen And of the air the demons, shrieked and screamed From their broad shields' reverberating rim, From their sword-hilts and their long-shafted ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... answered the pitiful plea. His deep chest swelled and throbbed; into his face crept the look that had been there on that day when he told Pascherette he loved her—loved her, yet worshiped Dolores as his gods. Letting the ax fall to his elbow by the thong at the haft, he stooped and tenderly picked up the girl, carrying her as a child carries a doll; yet his face was averted from Pascherette's passionate lips that sought ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... weapon shaped to the injury of the ancient tree of Judaism will recoil ineffectual, unless her sons and adherents themselves furnish the haft. There is consolation in the thought. Even in sad days it feeds the hope that the time will come, whereof the prophet spoke, when "all thy children shall be disciples of the Lord; and great shall be the ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, whose pommel and haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, "If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... that terrifying face which had daunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbled with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had told him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of these ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... latter is not known to have been hafted, and its working edges were at the pointed end; whereas in Neolithic times the implement had become an axe in the modern sense, with the pointed end inserted in a haft, and the cutting edge removed to the broader end. There are many other Neolithic types, used with or without a haft, and only a small proportion were finished by grinding ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... fellow from the very first, and he was prepared, on the defensive; yet he was willing and eager to take the offensive should this son of the yellow empire so much as show the haft of his kris, or whisper a word of counsel in his ear. The latter he feared quite as much as the former, for it would ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 55 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, 60 In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd Better to leave ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... of the Jade, Weser, and Elbe split up the sands into two main groups. The westernmost of these is symmetrical in outline, an acute-angled triangle, very like a sharp steel-shod pike, if you imagine the peninsula from which it springs to be the wooden haft. The other is a huge congeries of banks, its base resting on the Hanover coast, two of its sides tolerably clean and even, and the third, that facing the north-west, ribboned and lacerated by the fury of the sea, which has eaten out deep cavities and struck hungry tentacles ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... could recover himself, the claws which he coveted so much were deep in his right thigh. His presence of mind did not forsake him even then. Drawing his scalping-knife, he wrenched himself round, and twice buried the keen weapon to the haft in the bear's side. ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... he muttered. "What is the use of this? Where is he?" And his bloodshot eyes—it was Tuez-les-Moines—questioned the doors, while his hand, trembling and shaking on the haft of his knife, bespoke his eagerness. "Where is he? Where is he, woman? ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... to an attire so whimsical and uncommon, however, a pair of small and richly-mounted pistols were at the stranger's girdle; and the haft, of a curiously-carved Asiatic dagger was seen projecting, rather ostentatiously, from between the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... of each room will go over each patch completely at least twice, at an interval of about one month, hoeing down the weeds with a short-handled hoe; the hoe consists of a flat blade projecting at right angles from the iron haft (Fig. 13). The latter is bent downwards at a right angle just above the blade, in a plane perpendicular to that of the blade, and its other end is prolonged by a short wooden handle, into the end of ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... am hanged in Peshawur.' They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt; They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God. The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun, And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one. And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear— There was not a man but carried ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... metal on each of his fingers. His head was wrapped round by a silken veil or turban, and his body was cloathed to the knees in a cotton wrapper, wrought with silk and gold. He wore at his side a sword or dagger, with a haft of gold, and a scabbard of carved wood. This country is so rich, that one of the natives offered a crown of massy gold in exchange for six strings of glass beads; but Magellan would not allow such bargains, lest the Spaniards might appear ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... blades, like the bipennis of the Romans. and the labra of the Lydians and Carians; others more nearly resembled the weapons used by our own knights in the middle ages, having a single blade, and a mere ornamental point on the other side of the haft. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... her man to do with me that they should be put in a trap; and what is all this talk about the Red Flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do to Messua they will not do till Buldeo returns. And so——" Mowgli thought hard, with his fingers playing round the haft of the skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners went off ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... mammoths in the mountains and the elephants that came through the land in the summer-time out of the south. For why should they fear him, with but the rough, chipped flints that he had not learnt to haft and which he threw but ill, and the poor spear of sharpened wood, as all the weapons he had against hoof and ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... subordinate to the one great predominant purpose of all—a conquering army which was to intimidate the world. The army was the spearpoint of Prussia; the rest was merely the haft. That was what we had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves of Europe. They knew what it all meant. It was an army that in recent times had waged three wars, all of conquest, and the unceasing ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... the ice; in other words, if theology had preserved the same commanding interest for the more powerful minds with which it affected them three hundred years ago. But on the one hand, a sense, half serious, haft languid, of the hopelessness of the subject has produced an indisposition to meddle with it; on the other, there has been a creditable reluctance to disturb by discussion the minds of the uneducated or half-educated, to whom the established religion is simply ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... on her memory. Still it was not the intent men or the stately clustering pines that she recalled most clearly; it was the dominant central figure, standing almost statuesque, with head tilted slightly backward, and both hands clenched on the big ax haft. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... at last," said Jack, as he took the axe, pulled it off its haft, and stuffed both head ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat. And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: and the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, for he drew not the sword out of his belly; and it came out behind." Then Ehud locked the doors and escaped. "Now when he was gone out, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... he; "an' pray what div ye ca' this bit windlestrae that's appearing here?" With that he pointed to something on the inside of the breast of my frock-coat. I looked at it, and there certainly was the gilded haft of a poniard, the same weapon I had seen and handled before, and which I knew my illustrious companion carried about with him; but till that moment I knew not that I was in possession of it. I drew it out: a more dangerous or insidious-looking weapon could not be conceived. ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... of a table knife even in early times necessitated the work of many hands, for taking part in its production were the smiths who forged it, the bladers who made the blade out of the metal already hammered, and the haft-makers. When the knife was complete it was handed to the sheath-makers, who fashioned the sheath of leather, and sometimes encased it in metal. The host did not provide table cutlery for his guests ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess

... subduing the Indians, to whom the unending stretches of choked woodland were an impenetrable cover behind which to move unseen, a shield in making assaults, and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. In the conquest of the west the backwoods axe, shapely, well-poised, with long haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even to the rifle; the two were the national weapons of the American backwoodsman, and in their use he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... sword in that water and come again and tell me what there thou seest.' 'My lord,' said Bedivere, 'Your commandment shall be done; and lightly bring you word again.' So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and the haft was all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, 'If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.' And then Sir Bedivere hid Excaliber under a tree. And so, as soon as he might, he came again unto the king, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... mouth. But he sprang up swiftly, and took the spear that she had shot through his buckler, and threw it back again with a great force. He thought, "I will not slay so fair a maiden," and he turned the spear, and hurled it wit the haft loud against her harness. From her mail, also, the sparks flew as on the wind, for Siegmund's child threw mightily; and her strength failed before the blow. King Gunther, I ween, had never ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... in a sea-green dressing-gown ornamented by many pretty devices in lace of priceless fabric, which had taken a coffee tint by reason of its age. A book was lying on her knees, and she was toying with an ivory paper-knife which had its haft in a silver embossed rhinoceros tooth. She nodded Paul to a chair which had evidently been ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray









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