United States or Croatia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Damn ye, horse-thief, for the black of a bean I'd blow your brains out," said Colonel Waynflete. "Stick tight, lads; and you, good host, fetch along Master Mayor and the constable, and have me the scoundrel laid by the heels. If this were only my commandery on the Rhine! I'd strappado you and then hang you within the next half-hour. My bonny Sultan! How are you, my precious?"
But when my master proposed that the attendant of the Bishop should carry a letter into the hall to his master to inform him that we waited without, the man trembled in every limb, and the hair of his head shocked itself up in sheer terror. "I cannot I dare not," he cried; "it is the place of torture of the engines the strappado the water-drop, the leg-crushers!"
The man in the red cravat was threatened with the strappado, with the water-torture, with the brodequins, and finally with the devil's cannon which, according to our man-at-arms, was to be planted on the opposite bank of the ravine, and which would infallibly bring the whole of their wretched town tumbling down into the gulf like swallows' nests from under the eaves.
When and at what hour of day or night have I not been ready to serve you?" "Why, that's as may be," said I. "I think I could remind you of a night attack at Pistoja " "Oh, cruel," he said, "oh, cruel!" "Of a ravishment of the strappado applied to a man bound hand and foot " He pretended to weep. "Cruel, cruel Francis!"
But he had hardly moved at all when Don Quixote lost his footing; and slipping off the saddle, he would have come to the ground, but for being suspended by the arm, which caused him such agony that he believed either his wrist would be cut through or his arm torn off; and he hung so near the ground that he could just touch it with his feet, which was all the worse for him; for, finding how little was wanted to enable him to plant his feet firmly, he struggled and stretched himself as much as he could to gain a footing; just like those undergoing the torture of the strappado, when they are fixed at "touch and no touch," who aggravate their own sufferings by their violent efforts to stretch themselves, deceived by the hope which makes them fancy that with a very little more they will reach the ground.
He packs his quibbles like a stock of cards; let him but shuffle, and cut where you will, he will be sure to have it. He dances on a rope of sand, does the somersault, strappado, and half-strappado with words, plays at all manner of games with clinches, carwickets, and quibbles, and talks under-leg. His wit is left-handed, and therefore what others mean for right he apprehends quite contrary.
He donned his best clothes, and about four o'clock presented himself at Mrs Yule's house. By ill luck there happened to be at least half a dozen callers in the drawing-room; the strappado would have been preferable, in his eyes, to such an ordeal as this. Moreover, he was convinced that both Amy and her mother received him with far less cordiality than on the last occasion.
Then, as they all stood before him with uncovered heads, he began to look that he might know him whom he had polled; but, seeing the most part of them with their hair clipped after one and the same fashion, he marvelled and said in himself, 'He whom I seek, for all he may be of mean estate, showeth right well he is of no mean wit. Then, seeing that he could not, without making a stir, avail to have him whom he sought, and having no mind to incur a great shame for the sake of a paltry revenge, it pleased him with one sole word to admonish the culprit and show him that he was ware of the matter; wherefore, turning to all who were present, he said, 'Let him who did it do it no more and get you gone in peace. Another would have been for giving them the strappado, for torturing, examining and questioning, and doing this, would have published that which every one should go about to conceal; and having thus discovered himself, though he should have taken entire revenge for the affront suffered, his shame had not been minished, nay, were rather much enhanced therefor and his lady's honour sullied.
Martellino answered his questions in a bantering tone, making light of the arrest; whereat the deputy, losing patience, had him bound to the strappado, and caused him to receive a few hints of the cord with intent to extort from him a confession of his guilt, by way of preliminary to hanging him.
Stone, gout, strappado, racks, whatever is Dreadful to sense, are only toys to this No pleasures, riches, honours, friends can tell How to give ease to this, 'tis like to hell." And then, turning to the sick man's mother, who stood at the bed's head wringing her hands, the ancient leech said to her: "This boy of yours has been tampering with the forbidden fruit!"
Word Of The Day