Adventures of an Aide-de-campRoutledge, 1891 - 250 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
arms Bacco Baptistello Basta bayonets beautiful behold Belcastro beneath Bianca blood Bourmont brave brigands bright burst Calabrian cannon captain Cardinal Ruffo Cartouche Castelermo castle Catanzaro cavalier Cavaliere close colonel commanded Cosenza cried Crotona d'Alfieri dark despatched Despina Diomida ducats Dundas enemy escape Eufemio exclaimed eyes face fell fellow fierce fire flashed Francatripa Francesca French garrison girl Gismondo Giulio glittering gloomy hair hand head heard heart heaven hills honour horror horse hunchback Italian Italy lady laughed light lofty Luigi Luisa Madonna Maida Malta Maltese Maltese knight Marco Masse Massena morning mountains Naples Neapolitan never night noble officer Palermo passed podestà poniard poor Regnier replied rocks rolled round rushed sabre Santugo Scylla seemed shot Sicilian Sicily Signor Claude soldiers soon sparkling stern Strazoldi sword Tarento Truffi Varro villa visconte viscontessa voice walls waves wild wine wounded Zingari
Popular passages
Page 133 - When, parted hence, the wind that ready waits For Sicily, shall bear you to the straits : Where proud Pelorus opes a wider way, Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea : Veer starboard sea and land.
Page 230 - No, no! The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign; its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe, and the honour of my crown.
Page 44 - And dropping heavens the moisten'd earth repair, He lives on standing lakes and trembling bogs, And fills his maw with fish, or with loquacious frogs : But when, in muddy pools, the water sinks...
Page 24 - ... blacklegs and professed gamesters, whose tricks and expressions were worthy of the meanest " hell " in London or Paris. One hideous fellow, in particular, attracted my attention. He was a dwarf, and bulky in figure, but scarcely four feet in height, and miserably deformed: his head and arms would have suited a strong man of six feet high ; but the head was half buried between his brawny shoulders and a prodigious hump, which rose upon his back, and his arms reached far below his bandy knees....
Page 23 - As it was in the capital, so was it in all the provinces. Most of the ladies were attended by cavaliers ; some of the married, by that indescribable contingent on Italian matrimony (which we must hope is disappearing) — a cuAsbto.
Page 102 - As we approached the village, the white cottages of which shone in the moonlight on the dark green mountain side, a lurid flame shot across the sky — they were in flames ! Then the reports of musketry were heard ; a skirmish had ensued between the brigands and the armed peasantry. The latter had been defeated, and the unrelenting lieutenant of Francatripa, after laying their dwellings in ashes, leisurely retreated up the hills with his band. ' Satan seems abroad to-night !' said I, as the wailing...
Page 110 - I muttered, exasperated by this sudden declaration of passion, at which the poor girl seemed the image of confusion, though its pomposity evidently excited more amusement than pleasure.
Page 246 - Bourmoni, who fell dead, and rolled to the bottom of the rocks. The concussion threw Santugo backwards. But he was again dragged out of the press by the gunners, and taken to a sheltered place, where Macnesia attended to his wound. The instant Colonel Bourmont fell, another officer snatched the tricolour from the hand of the corpse as it rolled past, and supplied his place ; and once more the storming party rushed up the steep ascent, regardless as before of falling men and rolling stones, of the...
Page 105 - Signor, we war not with the soldier, unless in arms against us ; like our own, his profession is a poor one, and shame fall on the hand that would pilfer his hard-earned ducats — the wages of sweat, toil, and blood. But the gentleman who accompanies you ? By the star of heaven ! a knight of Malta ! This is sacrilege ! Pardon...
Page 203 - I felt his grasp tightening ; we were near the gulf, and I read his hellish purpose in the twinkling of his red, hollow eyes. Gathering all my strength for one tremendous effort — great beyond my hopes — I flung him from me into the flaming chasm, but the shock threw me prostrate on the turf. I leaped up : Truffi had vanished in that appalling grave, which was now closing rapidly, and soon shut altogether ; the sparks and ignited matter arose no more, and the wood became involved in double gloom.