Sward

“ They were not the eyes of a coward, but of some one much too clever to take risks; and my gorge rose at their look of base astuteness. Yet even that wasn’t the worst; for as we continued to scan each other I saw in them a tinge of faint derision, and felt myself to be its object.
“At that I was seized by an impulse of rage that jerked me out of bed and pitched me straight on the unseen figure at its foot. But of course there wasn’t any figure there, and my fists struck at emptiness. Ashamed and cold, I groped about for a match and lit the candles. ”

“ I have sometimes felt that all the difference between the courageous and craven lies in the chance of the instant with which the numbers fall on the dice of life. To-day's coward may be to-morrow's hero. For an instant, with an unspeakable babel in my ears and a picture of human battle in my eyes, I knew only the chaotic confusion that comes of panic. Then I caught a glimpse of one detail and all physical fear fell away from me. ”

“ Grose, that first scared Sunday, my flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. Here at present I felt afresh—for I had felt it again and again—how my equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature. ”

“ Ward, turning away from the savage, "his heart is full of bitterness; he says he is angry, and, verily, I like not his bearing. I fear me there is evil on foot. But ye have travelled far, and must needs be weary rest yourselves awhile, and haply, while ye refresh your bodies, I may also refresh your spirits with wholesome and comfortable doctrines." ”

“ HOW blest is he, who for his country dies,
Since death pursues the coward as he flies?
The youth in vain would fly from Fate's attack,
With trembling knees and Terrour at his back;
Though Fear should lend him pinions like the wind,
Yet swifter Fate will seize him from behind. ”

“ First, he enjoined secrecy, for should the king learn that he had come——The lad finished with a grimace, and a swipe of the hand across his throat. He made me pledge the sun to burn me up, the moon to strike me a stark lunatic, and the stars to pierce me with their lances, should I betray his confidence,—all this solemnly, but with a twinkle in the back of his eye. ”

“ And yet each whispering wind has blown
Abroad the story of my shame.
I dread to see men shrink away
With startled looks of scorn or fear,
When in life’s crowded marts some day,
That name falls on their ear. ”

“ Faces such as I have never yet beheld. What hideous yells do I hear! I feel that I have courage—courage! oh yes to overflowing! But if a mirror should betray me? or my shadow! or the whistling of the murderous stroke! Ugh! Ugh! How my hair bristles! A shudder creeps through my frame. (He lets a poigniard fall from under his clothes.) I am no coward—perhaps somewhat too tenderhearted. ”

“ The young man strode up and down the room giving way to shout after shout of hilarity, while the elder, all trace of humbug vanishing from his face, rose to his feet in alarm, believing that misfortune had turned the other’s brain, and fearing a transformation into a sudden savagery that might make his isolated position one of danger. ”

“ Once she began to pull the woollen scarf over her mouth, but with the sense of breathlessness came the beginning of panic, and she tore it away again.
"Go on—coward—coward," she urged herself. "Remember what it would mean to make another muddle of this, and to fail." ”

“ Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, can any one tell who has given the blow? ”

“ Look at a coward, his countenance blanched, and almost cadaverous,—the heavy limbs drooping and powerless,—the instruments of life paralysed, as though the fountain of existence were suddenly dried up. ”

“ At last I began to wonder whether those earth-shaking beasts had not been an evil dream, and was just venturing to stretch out a cramped leg, and rally myself upon my cowardice, when, without warning, at my elbow rose the most ear-piercing scream of rage that ever came from a living throat. ”

“ Others with pale face and quivering lip confessed the inward tumult, and that, if they feared naught for themselves, there were those at home, helpless and exposed, for whom the heart bled, and for whom it could not but show signs of fear. ”

“ Yet Lessman's was the soul that inhabited it. As a man sees his face in a mirror, so did I see my face before me. I hurled my stolen body to the floor. Screaming with rage, I showered blow after blow upon it. ”

“ I offer my gage to heaven and hell, and will maintain the combat with him that shall call it true. Thou hast been spellbound by an evil eye, my darling, and the fainting which you call cowardice is the work of magic. ”

“ I noticed one hard-favored fellow, who made a terrible noise, and upon whose features, as he turned the whites of his big eyes up toward heaven, there was a sinister, and, now and then, rather a comical expression, and who, when called to assist in filling up, appeared to throw on the earth, as if he did it from the heart. ”

“ The commonest of their men have wrestled with the powers of the air, and the might of wind, and wave, and icy cold. The weakest of their women have felt the hallowing touch of sudden calamity, and of long, lonely, life-and-death, watches. ”

“ She clasp'd her hands in pangs severe,
And shrieks reveal'd her agony.
And fainting on the earth she lay,
With struggles of convulsive breath,
As if weak life had fled away
In terror at the sight of death. ”

“ I heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall, and turning saw an awful face rushing upon me,—not human, not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed with red branching scars, red drops starting out upon it, and the lidless eyes ablaze. ”

“ Lear, on his knees, bareheaded, with heavenward eye, quivering lip, and hands clasped together in agony, pronounced the terrible curse, and in his death realised all that can be imagined of human woe. ”

“ The wretches like to see a pitying face, to relate their sufferings, and to hear words of charity and sympathy. Passing down the middle between the beds, you look for the face which is the least rigid, the least contracted by pain, and on finding it decide to go near and put a question. ”

“ I am not a nervous subject. Nor am I, I believe, a physical coward. But I am compelled to own that, instead of attempting to interfere, or offering the assistance which I had only too good reason to suppose was urgently needed, at the sound of the laughter, like some frightened cur, I turned and fled. ”

“ There goes a madman or a bard!
"Their thoughtful air and melancholy gait make them appear insane; for, accustomed to versify while they walk, and to bite their nails in apparent agonies, their steps are measured and slow, and they look as if they were reflecting on something of consequence, although they are only thinking, as the phrase runs, of nothing!" ”

“ I neither run nor fight, but do meanly stand, answering each heavy blow of a cruel master with doleful wails and piteous cries. I am galled with irons; but even these are more tolerable than the consciousness, the galling consciousness of cowardice and indecision. ”

“ Some turned their heads over upon the shoulder of the persons nearest them, as if in the act of drinking water, and expired—others lost their reason entirely, struck out furiously around them, tore their own hair and that of others, and then went off in strong and hideous convulsions. ”

“ I thought to myself in fear, changing to a sort of feverishness. “Is it because we are lying here so comfortably and not firing much? He’s certain to order us to lie some different way and do more shooting.” ”

“ The day’s work began in the manner which had of late grown customary, and in a while the fog gave way to a brilliance unusually flushed and hectic. The uninvited, invisible personage kept his place, until, even with the constant fancy that he was there looking over my shoulder, and so close that there was always a risk of contact, I grew to disregard him. ”

“ Must he answer? He wanted to drift on and on——
“Can you tell me where the pain is?”
Pain? Oh, yes, there had been pain—but he wanted to drift. He opened his eyes again reluctantly; again the pain clutched him. ”

“ Dragging with her one woman who was paralysed with fright, she induced the others to follow her, and when they were out of the line of fire, proceeded to examine the terrific wounds from which one and all declared themselves to be suffering. ”

“ A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature’s voices all around them—the soft singing of the waters, the whisperings of the river grass, the music of the rushing wind—should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not. ”

“ She rises, looks towards the threshold, staggers a step forward, utters one long wild shriek, and falls senseless to the floor.
In all the agonies she has endured, in all the horrors through which she has passed, she has never before lost her senses. The cause must indeed be a powerful one. ”

“ We were in dread. Our horror was at its height, circulation had stopped, all nervous influence was annihilated, and we were covered with cold sweat, like a sweat of agony! And what noise around our frail bark! ”

“ The deeply-furrowed face, too, bore evidence of bygone struggles, perhaps of sorrows and sufferings of many kinds endured in the past, and the sharp, bitter lines about the mouth gave a harsh and almost hostile expression to a countenance which must once have been bright with ardour and intelligence. ”

“ Many of them were the veriest cowards that lived, but now, under their master’s eye, and knowing that, while there was no chance of fleeing, no quarter was to be expected from their red-skinned foes, they would fight desperately and well. ”

“ The well-known, how-often fondly-contemplated features tell the whole story in the photograph taken, as you say, a few days before the crisis. Madness is plainly lurking in that lurid eye, stamps indelibly the arch of the nostril and the curve of the lip, and in ambush along the soft curve of the cheek it lies ready to burst forth in consuming fire. ”

“ She saw him start; and with a single syllable of an oath, reached his hand under her hood to the track of the artery at her throat. He needed to listen but an instant to the fevered pulse to know the truth.
“We're going too fast,” he told her shortly. ”

“ And as he lingered a moment there he heard a great sound.
This sound troubled his heart exceedingly, so that he fell into deep dejection and said: "Ah me! Disaster is upon me. I am as good as dead already. Who made that sound? What kind of a creature?" ”

“ The stranger rules us, the shackles are on our wrists;—what can we do?" Then would follow a shrug of the shoulders, a wink of the eye, and a hasty return to the sort of manner which a careless observer might easily mistake for the external proof of content, but which is, in fact, a disguise put on to hide feelings directly the reverse. ”

“ But lo! in that hour shall greet you,
At the end of your perilous path,
A mockery far more bitter
Than the sting of the frost king's wrath,
For this is the meed you shall gather
In the lands no man has trod:
The finger that beckoned you onward
Shall lift and point to God! ”

“ As he turns to the door she detains him with the quick cry: "What pursues you, that you should thus flee?" He answers, slowly and sadly: "Misfortune pursues me wherever I flee. Misfortune meets me wherever I go. ”

“ Now that I am writing, let me record that I am certain, there is something horrible about to happen. Last night, a thing occurred, which has filled me with an even greater terror, than did the Pit fear. ”

“ Face to face with me stood, or rather crouched, a man—a tall, dark man, with white, scared face and large, wildly bright eyes riveted on mine. It seemed as though he had turned round suddenly from peering down into the black depths of the chasm, and was horror-struck to see me. ”

“ And then the gentlemen ushers, in like manner brake their rods, and threw them into the vault with exceeding sorrow and heaviness, not without grievous sighs and tears, not only of them, but of many others, as well of the meaner sort, as of the nobility, very piteous and sorrowful to behold. ”

“ And he abruptly left them. He was raging with anger and mortification. He flung open the door of his house; he strode through the halls, muttering imprecations; but, suddenly, the curses died upon his lips. ”

“ You would fly at a starving beggar, you infernal coward. Anything that you can surprise unawares—anything that is afraid of your big body, and your wicked white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you like to fly at. ”