But she was as mad as a devil, and nothing but ill words between us all the evening while we sat at cards—W. Hewer and the girl by—even to gross ill words, which I was troubled for, but do see that I must use policy to keep her spirit down, and to give her no offence by my being with Knepp and Pierce, of which, though she will not own it, yet she is heartily jealous.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The ravages of the Tartars which drove the people of Hormuz from their city may have begun with the incursions of the Nigudaris and Karaunahs, but they probably came to a climax in the great raid in 1299 of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, son of Dua Khan, a part of whose bands besieged the city itself, though they are said to have been repulsed by Baháuddin Ayas.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

When any one of them had killed a protestant, others would come and receive a gratification in cutting and mangling the body; after which they left it exposed to be devoured by dogs; and when they had slain a number of them they would boast, that the devil was beholden to them for sending so many souls to hell.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

And presently the monk gave his horse the spur, and kept the way that the enemy held, who had met with Gargantua and his companions in the broad highway, and were so diminished of their number for the enormous slaughter that Gargantua had made with his great tree amongst them, as also Gymnast, Ponocrates, Eudemon, and the rest, that they began to retreat disorderly and in great haste, as men altogether affrighted and troubled in both sense and understanding, and as if they had seen the very proper species and form of death before their eyes; or rather, as when you see an ass with a brizze or gadbee under his tail, or fly that stings him, run hither and thither without keeping any path or way, throwing down his load to the ground, breaking his bridle and reins, and taking no breath nor rest, and no man can tell what ails him, for they see not anything touch him.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

The same day had seen Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the conditions being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians kept as prisoners of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

From within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty old disks of metal.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

If the voice was weak, he told him to tie a band round his waist to increase the volume of sound; if he stammered or had any defect in his speech, Ziryāb made him keep a piece of wood in his mouth till his jaws were properly stretched.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

When he had anything to say or do about us, it was said or done in a wholesale manner; disposing of us in classes or sizes, leaving all minor details to Aunt Katy, a person of whom the reader has already received no very favorable impression.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

She was so pretty that when our present King as Prince of Wales lunched with us he asked, “Who is that very pretty girl in the sari?”
— from The Autobiography of an Indian Princess by Maharani of Cooch Behar Sunity Devee

On their way they surprised and killed a party of woodchoppers on Pawnee Fork, as well as a party of herders guarding beef cattle.
— from An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) by Buffalo Bill

This medal and the following one were struck for presentation to the adherents of the King and Prince of Wales, who visited them in their exile.
— from A Guide to the Exhibition of English Medals by British Museum. Department of Coins and Medals

"So this is her way of getting to know a poor overworked wreck who came out to patch his lungs in peace and quiet!
— from Stingaree by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

Civil officers kept as prisoners of war, may be paroled; but no citizens without office, no citizens in a merchant vessel stopped by a privateer or man-of-war, can be paroled.
— from A Code for the Government of Armies in the Field, as authorized by the laws and usages of war on land. by United States. War Department

It had hitherto been the uniform policy of the government to kill all prisoners, of whatever rank.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley

'Not to you,' he said; 'I kneel and pray only when I love and fear.'
— from The Unknown Sea by Clemence Housman

+Beware of the concision+, the apostles of a mere physical wounding, which, as enjoined according to their principles, is nothing better than a mutilation ( katatomê ), a parody of what circumcision was meant to be, as the sacrament of a preparatory dispensation now terminated in its Ver.
— from Philippian Studies Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians by H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn) Moule