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Ransom   /rˈænsəm/   Listen
Ransom

noun
1.
Money demanded for the return of a captured person.  Synonym: ransom money.
2.
Payment for the release of someone.
3.
The act of freeing from captivity or punishment.



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"Ransom" Quotes from Famous Books



... other ills save hunger only, seeing that the help they looked for came not, and that when the guards went forth to their watch they could scarce for weakness stand up under their arms, were resolute that they should either surrender or ransom themselves on such terms as might be had. And this they did the more readily because the Gauls had made it plain that they might be persuaded by no great sum of money to give up the siege. The Senate, therefore, was called together, and the matter was entrusted ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... the height of his ascendancy he did not disdain to stand in the public place in Sienna, and, trembling in every vein, beg money from the people to ransom a friend from captivity. Do I appear to thee to speak with mysterious significance? Thy countrymen shall too soon help thee ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... people to carry corn to Jamestown, an Englishman named Samuel Argall went on a foraging expedition near the home of Powhatan, and enticed Pocahontas on board his vessel. He held the young woman as a prisoner, and offered to release her for a large ransom in corn. Powhatan refused to have anything to do with Argall, but sent word to Jamestown saying that if his daughter should be returned to him he would treat the English as friends. Pocahontas was detained at Jamestown for several months, being treated with respect, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... painful note runs through the diary kept during the meeting of the Assembly at Bordeaux. France is not only vanquished, she is mutilated. The conqueror demands a ransom of milliards—it is his right, the right of the strongest; but he tears from her two provinces, with their inhabitants devoted to France; it is a return towards barbarism. VICTOR HUGO withdraws indignantly from the Assembly which has agreed ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... said Dolly Ransom, as, rubbing her eyes sleepily, since it was only a little after six, she joined her friend on the porch. "This is really the first time we've had a chance to see what the lake looks like. It's been covered with that dense smoke ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... their heads. Everybody stayed in the kitchen and there was endless discussion imagining the most unlikely things. Perhaps they wanted to hold them as hostages—but for what object?—or take them away as prisoners? or, rather, demand from them a large ransom? at this thought they became panic-stricken. The wealthiest were the most alarmed, seeing themselves already compelled, in order to redeem their lives, to pour bags of gold into the hands of this insolent soldier. They racked their brains ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... not, let me say,—read, as a serious study, the life of Jesus Christ as given in the Gospels. Read it in the light of His own sayings, that 'He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many,' and that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.' Read of His life as the Man of Sorrows, of His agony in Gethsemane, of His death on the Cross, crushed ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... 6. Hosea. "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... everybody knows, the only decent place for dining at Naples,) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person with whose society I was greatly pleased at first—indeed, we had met in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose—a man of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to them ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... he could still find that lone beacon, even without the aid of his binoculars. It was easy for such an imaginative fellow to picture in his mind the lingering sloop, loaded to the gunwales with case goods, worth almost a millionaire's ransom—the dark sailors from Bimimi lolling around on deck, ready to up-sail and flee should the slightest sign of a Coast Guard raid make itself manifest. From off toward the distant shore line there came dully to their listening ears the repeated ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... death that hath been ordained. Therefore, O monarch, give it up to me.' Thus addressed by the hawk, the king said, 'Let my men see and carefully carry the bull to thee with every limb entire. Let that bull be the ransom of this creature afflicted with fright and let it be carried to thee before my eyes. Oh, slay not this pigeon! I will yield up my very life, yet I would not give up this pigeon. Dost thou not know, O hawk, that this creature looketh like a sacrifice with the Soma ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... had been a partner in a great jewellery house, Cottier's, of Paris, London, and New York. (So that explained it! She was wearing the blue diamond again tonight, with other jewels worth, in the judgment of a keen connoisseur, a king's ransom.) Schooled at an exclusive establishment for the daughters of people of fashion, Eve at an early age had made her debut; but within the year her father died, and her mother, whose heart had always been in the city of her nativity, closed the house on East Fifty-seventh street and removed with her ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... would have to be faced—Why are all not saved? According to the doctrine quoted elsewhere, that God infallibly accomplishes everything at which He aims, all must infallibly be saved. For God certainly aimed at that consummation in giving His Son as a ransom for all. Here is a crux from which, it seems to me, there is ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... influence over Xerxes. I knew that the great king would at any cost seek to regain the liberty of his friend. I urged upon Ariamanes the wisdom of a peace with the Greeks even on their own terms. I told him that when Xerxes sent to offer the ransom, conditions of peace would avail more than sacks of gold. He listened and approved. Did I wrong in this, Pausanias? No; for thou, whose deep sagacity has made thee condescend even to appear half Persian, because thou art all Greek—thou ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... IS good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... o'clock a sudden knock was heard at the door. He dared not make a sound, for he was firmly resolved to ransom himself, the ladies, and the enchanted castle; so he kept as still as a mouse. Again the knocking came, but he made no answer. At the third knock the door flew open, and in walked a gigantic form ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... think I may, for they were fewer than the Articles of my Faith, therefore I have room for you, and will believe you—Yet stay, you say you'l ransom your jewels with Ready-money when you come Home; so you may, ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris

... in between her and the "accusing angel" of her own conscience; alone in the solitude of her spirit she must wrestle with her own sorrows; none can walk for her "the valley of the shadow of death!" When her brother shall be able to settle for her accountabilities, and "give to God a ransom for her soul," then, and not till then, may she rightly commit to him the direction of her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... was distinctly stated in the charter of St. Quentin of the year 1002 that the ransom for houses which had to be demolished for crimes went for the city walls. The same destination was given to the Ungeld in German cities. At Pskov the cathedral was the bank for the fines, and from this fund money was taken ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... tomahawk, considered himself but the honored executor of justice. Assasamooyh, however, at length leaped a bank, and, plunging into the forest, eluded his foe. The English then succeeded, by a very heavy ransom, in purchasing his life, and Philip returned to Mount Hope, feeling that his father's ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... to overawe disorder, and for the first time in the history of Kansas the two opposing parties measured their strength at the ballot-box. The result was an overwhelming triumph for the free-State party. For delegate in Congress, Ransom, the Democratic candidate, received 3799 votes; Parrott, the Republican candidate, 7888—a free-State majority of 4089. For the Legislature, even under the defective apportionment, the council stood 9 free-State members to 4 Democrats, and the ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... powers at Kinsale, and among the number one Roderic O'Donnell, an arch traitor, and near kinsman to that other O'Donnell who led the rebels; who, claiming kindred through his mother to De Lacy, sued for his life with instant and miserable entreaty, and offered great ransom, but was by De Lacy, through great zeal for the queen, as some thought, cruelly put to death. When he went to the tower-top, where was the gallows, finding himself in extremity, and no hope of mercy, he swore that though he could work them ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... the tone of cold disgust for moral delinquency). Am I to understand, then, that you are a brigand? Is this a matter of ransom? ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw

... Asankhyeya-kalpas,(9) manifested his activity, and did not spare his own life. He gave up kingdom, city, wife, and son; he plucked out his eyes and gave them to another;(10) he cut off a piece of his own flesh to ransom the life of a dove;(10) he cut off his head and gave it as an alms;(11) he gave his body to feed a starving tigress;(11) he grudged not his marrow and his brains. In many such ways as these did he undergo pain for ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... these purposes were. It may be said in general, that "it was for us men, and for our salvation, that he came down from heaven;" or, as the Scripture expresses it, "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost, and to give his life a ransom for many." ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... within its walls. When viewing the public and private halls of audience, known as the Diwan i 'Am and the Diwan i Khass, it is however natural to think rather of scenes of splendour such as Bernier described when Aurangzeb sat in royal apparel on the Peacock throne with a king's ransom in the aigrette of his turban and the rope of pearls which hung from his neck. On such an occasion, the pillars of the Diwan i 'Am were hung with gold brocades and the floors covered with rich silken carpets. Half the court outside was occupied by ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... the crime of the initiator of an anti-national policy, the crime of M. Jules Ferry. It will also remain the irreparable fault committed by those who have adopted the lamentable policy which consists in following in the train of the conqueror once the ransom has been paid. ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... return to his own country, collect a band of men and cross to Talland Cove, where on a Christmas Eve he surprised his late host at supper, bound him, haled him down to the shore, carried him off to Brittany, and there held him at ransom. The ransom was paid, and our Cornish miller, returning, built himself a secret cupboard behind the chimney for a hiding-place against another such mishap. That hiding-place yet existed, and formed (as the Major well knew) a ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... five hundred crowns that are asked of him are five hundred dagger-thrusts—ah! ah! ah! ah! He can't bring his mind to tear out, as it were, this sum from his heart, and his anguish makes him think of the most ridiculous means to find money for his son's ransom—ah! ah! ah! He wants to send the police into the open sea after the Turk's galley— ah! ah! ah! He asks his servant to take the place of his son till he has found the money to pay for him—money he ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)

... and Benevento against king Luitprand. Out of respect to his sanctity and dignity, that king restored to the church of Rome all the places which belonged to it: Ameria, Horta, Narni, Ossimo, Ancona, and the whole territory of Sabina, and sent back the captives without ransom. The Lombards were moved to tears at the devotion with which they heard him perform the divine service. By a journey to Pavia, {597} he obtained also of Luitprand, though with some difficulty, peace for the territory of Ravenna, and the restitution of the places which he had taken from ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... than selfishly, had a very different motive than humanity for this apparent generosity: having gained possession of the person of Margaret, he immediately rendered her his own prisoner, and caused her father to be informed that if he wished to ransom her, he must give up all his hereditary rights to the duchies of Anjou and Lorrain. So tenderly did Rene love his daughter, that he made the sacrifice without hesitation. The history of this princess, as collected from the French memoirs, has an air rather of romance than of real history. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... proceed to take measures for the ransom of our citizens in captivity at Algiers, in conformity with your resolution of advice of the 1st instant, so soon as the moneys necessary shall be appropriated by the Legislature and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... act of humanity towards them. After all, it may be that generosity was not foreign to the nature of this fanatical French patriot. Cornwallis was grateful, and cheerfully refunded the amount of the ransom. [Footnote: Des Herbiers to Cornwallis, October 2, 1750.—Public Archives, Canada. Nova Scotia A, vol. ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... in garrets, had left their traces here in this vast bazar of human follies. Here, beside a writing desk, made at the cost of 100,000 francs, and sold for a hundred pence, lay a lock with a secret worth a king's ransom. The human race was revealed in all the grandeur of its wretchedness; in all the splendor of its infinite littleness. An ebony table that an artist might worship, carved after Jean Goujon's designs, in years of toil, had been purchased perhaps ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... him in town, on the other hand, always laughed at him, and were unkind enough to hint that he never by any chance bought an article at less than its full price, and often paid an extremely fanciful ransom for his purchases. ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... wife of the metal-smith, is not for one of your quality, though the wench is well enough now with her baby on her arm and the best of her seen by a poet and made enduring. He, like our Bernardo, had motherhood in such esteem that he held it would ransom a sin. A sin? I am no casuist to discuss rewards and punishments; but if Socrates were rightly informed and sin indeed ignorance, I have no whips for Mariota's square shoulders. Her baby, I warrant, plucked her from the burning. I am not so sure but you might find ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... the king and obtain its fulfilment, he should go free with a whole skin; but that, pending the negotiation, which could be carried on by the fathers of the Abbey of Strata Florida, he would remain a close prisoner, and his ransom ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... For Gudlaug, the son of Osvif's sister, no weregild (atonement) should be paid, because of his having set out against, and laid ambush for, Kjartan, neither should Thorolf have any compensation for the wounds he had got. Olaf would not let Bolli be prosecuted, and bade him ransom himself with a money fine. This Halldor and Stein, and all the sons of Olaf, liked mightily ill, and said it would go hard with Bolli if he was allowed to stay in the same countryside as themselves. Olaf saw that would work well ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... a while, and then answered: "Those are very desperate and determined men. Their reason for abducting your daughter is now plain—it was for ransom. Of course, Judge, you do not put one thousand dollars in the scale against Miss Viola's life. It is outrageous to think of gratifying the wishes of those scoundrels, but I am afraid it must be ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... Carthage engaged to evacuate Sicily; not to make war upon Hiero of Syracuse; to give up all Roman prisoners without ransom, and to pay ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... were placed on their feet. In Peak Castle, Derbyshire, a poor, simple squire, one Godfrey Rowland, was confined for six days without either food or drink, and then released from the dungeon with his right hand cut off. In order to extract a heavy ransom, to obtain lands and estates, to learn the secrets of hidden treasure, the most ingenious and devilish tortures were ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... delicately than he; he had the gift of adjective; he scented a new one afar like a truffle; and from the Morgue of the dictionary he dragged forgotten beauties. He dowered the language of his day with every tint of dawn and every convulsion of sunset; he invented metaphors that were worth a king's ransom, and figures of speech that deserve the Prix Montyon. Then reviewing his work, he formulated an axiom which will go down with a nimbus through time: Whomsoever a thought however complex, a vision however apocalyptic, ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... Romans were so hard pressed that they consented to purchase immunity with gold. They were in the act of weighing it, a legend tells us, when Camillus appeared on the scene, threw his sword into the scales in place of the ransom, and declared that the Romans should not purchase peace, but would win it with the sword. This act of daring and prompt decision so roused the Romans that they triumphantly swept from the sacred soil the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... capitulate; when the generosity of Edward's measures excited the admiration of all humane minds. The troops, only sixty in number, were taken into the King's service, as a token of his approval of their brave defence; they were then released, ransom free, and received each a new garment, as a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... and gladly. If this bitter strife May so by one brief hour be sooner stayed, Then is your offering, spent to ransom life, A thousand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various

... wove with figures of Kings and Earls upon it." There was a roistering Britisher called John le Tappistere, who was complained of by certain people near Oxford, as having seized Master John of Shoreditch, and assaulted and imprisoned him, confiscating his goods and charging him fifty pounds for ransom. It is not stated what the gentleman from Shoreditch had done thus to bring down upon him the wrath of John ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... Thus with o'erweening scorn doth bitter Fate in my extreme hour even grudge ears to my plaints. All-powerful Jupiter! would that in old time the Cecropian poops had not touched at the Gnossian shores, nor that bearing to the unquelled bull the direful ransom had the false mariner moored his hawser to Crete, nor that yon wretch hiding ruthless designs beneath sweet seemings had reposed as a guest in our halls! For whither may I flee? in what hope, O lost one, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... criminal, that he was often slain by his own clan, to wipe out the disgrace he had brought on them. In the same spirit of confidence, it was not unusual to behold the victors, after an engagement, dismiss their prisoners upon parole, who never failed either to transmit the stipulated ransom, or to surrender themselves to bondage, if unable to do so. But the virtues of a barbarous people, being founded not upon moral principle, but upon the dreams of superstition, or the capricious dictates of antient custom, can seldom be uniformly relied on. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... him, like a wizened robber sheik of the sea, hold up large caravans of ships to the number of three hundred or more at the very gates of the English Channel. And the worst of it was that there was no ransom that we could pay to satisfy his avidity; for whatever evil is wrought by the raiding East Wind, it is done only to spite his kingly brother of the West. We gazed helplessly at the systematic, cold, gray-eyed obstinacy of the Easterly weather, while short rations became the order of the day, and ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... they sometimes sold at Louisburg for arms and ammunition. The Governor asserted that pure compassion was the motive of this traffic, in order to rescue the captives from massacre. He demanded, however, an excessive ransom for their liberation. The Indians were sometimes, indeed generally, it was asserted, led in these murderous raids by French commanders. These violations of neutrality, however, were chiefly the work of a few turbulent spirits. The mass of the Acadian peasants seem to have ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... the town but a short time, but in that time they were able to gather together and to carry away money and jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners, whom they held for ransom. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... which has concluded our warfare with that State an article for the ransom of our citizens has been agreed to. An operation by land by a small band of our country-men and others, engaged for the occasion in conjunction with the troops of the ex-Bashaw of that country, gallantly conducted by our late ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... and they dropped the subject. Kendric told Barlow what he had learned during the evening; how the walls were sentinelled and how at the present moment under the same roof with them was an American girl, held for ransom. ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... observable, was softened in one particular, after the first edition[401]; for the conclusion of Mr. George Grenville's character stood thus: 'Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally possessed: could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ransom, he could have counted it[402].' Which, instead of retaining its sly sharp point, was reduced to a mere flat unmeaning expression, or, if I may use the word,—truism: 'He had powers not universally possessed: and if he sometimes erred, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Pizarro went from Tumbez to Caxamalca, where he took king Atabalipa prisoner, who engaged to pay a vast sum in gold and silver for his ransom. On purpose to procure this, Pedro de Varco and Ferdinando do Sotto were sent to the city of Cusco, in lat. 17 deg. S.[68], a journey of 200 leagues, all upon causeways of stone, with bridges wherever ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... the forest that he knew not where he was. On his right hand he saw a hill, and before it he saw two dwarfs. He drew his sword against them, and cut off their retreat by getting between them and the rock. They offered him ransom for their lives, and he asked them their names, and they said that one of them was called Dyren and the other Dualin. Then he knew that they were the most ingenious and the most expert of all the dwarfs, and he therefore ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... command that from now and henceforth no Indian may be enslaved because he has fought, nor for any other reason, whether because of rebellion, or for purposes of ransom, nor in any other way, and we desire that they shall be treated as our vassals of the Crown of Castile, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... right," said he. "Abdulka is a kind man. At first he really did order fetters to be riveted on my legs, and was even preparing to impale me on a stake. But I explained to him why I had come. 'Do not expect any ransom from me,' said I. 'I haven't a farthing to my name—and I have no relatives.'—Abdulka was amazed; he stared at me with his solitary eye.-'Well,' says he, 'thou art the chief of heroes, Russian! Am I to believe thee?'—'Believe ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... had robbed from some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine. He spoke a little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the Northman's tongue. We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him better ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors—as once befell a knight of ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... much afraid of the native blacks," said the girl, "as I am of Usanga and his people. He and his men were all attached to a German native regiment. They brought me along with them when they deserted, either with the intention of holding me ransom or selling me into the harem of one of the black sultans of the north. Usanga is much more to be feared than Numabo for he has had the advantage of European military training and is armed with more or ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... If Ransom [Dr. Ransom of Nottingham.] had not overworked himself, I should probably not be ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... against them, and several times attempted to make a stand but were defeated with great loss. The principal towns were found deserted, and even Poix, which offered great capabilities of defence, had been left unguarded. Upon the English entering, the burghers offered to pay a large ransom to save the town from plunder. The money was to be delivered as soon as the English force had withdrawn, and Walter Somers was ordered by the king to remain behind with a few men-at-arms to ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... stirrings and impulses which sometimes rise within us, we still continue immersed in sense and sin; and we shall also find that in spite of the most solemn and awful fears of which a finite being is capable, we remain bondmen to ourselves, and our sin. The dread that goes down into hell can no more ransom us, than can the aspiration that goes up into heaven. Our fear of eternal woe can no more change the heart, than our wish for eternal happiness can. We have, at some periods, faintly wished that lusts and passions had no power over us; and perhaps we have been the subject ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... destroys all sense of personal dignity, of modesty, of outward decency, till human life, as Bishop Fraser justly said, is "degraded below the level of the swine." To such, and among such I went, and I could not grudge the price that then seemed to me as the ransom for their redemption. To me, indeed, it meant the losing of all that made life dear, but for them it seemed to be the gaining of all that gave hope of a better future. So how could I hesitate—I whose heart had been fired by devotion to an ideal Humanity, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... him goods and gold that he might be set at liberty, and he sware that he would be the king's man, and hold all his lands henceforward from him, and would depart from the kingdom with all his folk. Thus must the king, being captive, stand at King Arthur's pleasure to pay him such ransom as he might think good. Of him will ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... of money for their ransom were immediately after slain; and several towns, which were under the king's promise of protection and safety, were cut off as soon as they delivered themselves up, on those promises, to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... not the least of many great days in Bean's life, that golden afternoon when he sped to the bird-and-animal store and paid the last installment of Napoleon's ransom. The creature greeted him joyously as of yore through the wall of glass, frantically essaying to lick the hand that was so close ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... one of the secret charts. The Spanish authorities scarcely could have been aware that he had learned a secret of such immense importance, or his silence would have been insured by the headsman. As it was, he was thrown into prison for illegal trading, where he was held for heavy ransom. But he managed to get word to Amsterdam of the priceless information which had come into his possession, whereupon the merchants of that city promptly formed a syndicate, subscribed the money for his ransom, and obtained his release. Thus it came about that shortly after ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... as I can make out, he says there is no use keeping the dragoman, as no one would trouble to pay a ransom for him, and he is too fat ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... tab.) The word agrees so remarkably, both in form and meaning, with the Greek poin, that Mommsen assigned to it a place in what he calls Grco-Italic ideas.[5] We might suppose, therefore, that the ancient Italians took poena originally in the sense of ransom, simply as a civil act, by which he who had inflicted injury on another was, as far as he and the injured person were concerned, restored in integrum. The etymology of the word, however, leads us back into ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... in which he was confined was twenty-two feet in length by seventeen feet in width. Raising his hand as high as he could, the Inca made a mark upon the wall, and told Pizarro that gold enough to fill the room to that mark would be given as a ransom ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw

... the same level, is the Villa Helvetia, a benevolent home for ladies not younger than 18 nor older than 40, who are received for 20s. aweek, which includes everything "except laundress and fire in bedroom." For conditions of admission apply to Ransom, Bouverie, and Co., bankers, London; Mrs. Seton Karr, 30 Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park; or Miss Mackenzie, 16 Moray Place, Edinburgh. Below, on the terrace along the beach, is Christ Church, and adjoining is the Paix, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War (MS. edition, Alexandria), it is stated that, after the defeat of Veridovix by G. Titullius Sabinus, the chief of the Caleti was brought before Caesar and that, for his ransom, he revealed the ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... the line of the same railroad. Major Garrard with his battalion of the Third New York Cavalry went (while the main army was moving) early in the morning to Tompkins bridge, over the Neuse river. He took with him a section of Ransom's Twenty-third New York Artillery. On arriving in the vicinity of the bridge Captain Jacobs, with his company of cavalry, was ordered to charge down to it. He did so, found the bridge in flames, and received fire from the enemy. It will again be seen that the enemy ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe

... of what they say about your friends," said Cameron to Dick in a low tone while the Indians were thus engaged. "Depend upon it they hope to hide them till they can send to the settlements and get a ransom, or till they get an opportunity of torturing them to death before their women and children when they get back to their own village. But we'll baulk them, my friend, do ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... down on them in the midst of their happiness,—refused to let Judge Q. ransom Sol at twice his value,—and tore him from his wife and child. Returning with him to Jacksonville, he beat him almost to death,—after which, he sent him out on the wharves to earn their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... of pride, King Henry to deride, His ransom to provide To the King sending; Which he neglects the while, As from a nation vile Yet with an angry ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... to pay yearly for the maintenance of the sanctuary. Though the sum was so vast that Haman could not find coin enough to pay it, but promised to deliver it in the form of silver bars, Ahasuerus refused the ransom. When Haman made the offer, he said: "Let us cast lots. If thou drawest Israel and I draw money, then the sale stands as a valid transaction. If the reverse, it is not valid." Because of the sins of the Jews, the sale was ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... come is, to enter into the joy of our Lord. And how did He fulfil that joy, but by humbling Himself, and taking the form of a slave, and coming not to be ministered to but to minister, and to give His whole life, even to the death upon the cross, a ransom for many? Be sure, that unless you take up His cross, you will not share His crown. Be sure, that unless you follow in His footsteps, you will never reach the place where He is. If you wish to enter into the joy of your Lord, be sure that His joy is now, as it was in Judaea ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... dungeons and demanded heavy ransoms for their release. They sent many thousands to the markets to be sold,—the men to be degraded to slavery, the women, praying for death, to be dragged away to harems of their purchasers. Among the captives held for ransom were many Americans. But you are familiar with all this ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... uncommunicative, attentive and respectful. One of these men is always in charge of the front door, and visitors are admitted with caution, it being highly desirable to admit only the nominally respectable. The best known houses are those of Morrissey, in Twenty-fourth street, and Ransom's and Chamberlain's, in Twenty-fifth street. Chamberlain's is, perhaps, the most palatial and the best conducted establishment in ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... strength; that they did not yet understand the true magnanimity, the true royalty of that spirit, by which the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... but the troops knew the strength of their position, for these mutinies were never repressed, and rarely punished. On this occasion the Commander was afraid to employ force, and the burghers, after the army had been quartered upon them for a time, would gladly pay a heavy ransom to be rid of their odious and expensive guests. The mutineers foreseeing that the work might last a few weeks, and determined to proceed leisurely; took possession of the great square. The Eletto, with his staff of councillors, was quartered in the town-house, while ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... dubious peace with the Saracens, while Renaud got into trouble by making an equally dubious war on the Saracens. Renaud exacted from Moslem travellers on a certain road what he regarded as a sort of feudal toll or tax, and they regarded as a brigand ransom; and when they did not pay he attacked them. This was regarded as a breach of the truce; but probably it would have been easier to regard Renaud as waging the war of a robber, if many had not regarded Raymond as having made the truce ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... unrevealed And unrepented, are forgiven! Count but the gain, count not the loss Your gold and silver are but dross, And yet they pave the way to heaven. I hear your mothers and your sires Cry from their purgatorial fires, And will ye not their ransom pay? O senseless people! when the gate Of heaven is open, will ye wait? Will ye not enter in to-day? To-morrow it will be too late; I shall be gone upon my way. Make haste! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... another sprightly youth, to be brought to England and educated in the European manners. The captain received them, and basely sold them for slaves. He shortly after died; and, the ship coming to England, the officers related the whole affair: upon which the government sent to pay their ransom, and they were brought to England and put under the care of the Earl of Halifax, then at the head of the board of trade, who had them clothed and educated in a suitable manner. They were afterwards ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... hurried from his office to his home, seized his pistols, mounted his horse and rode out to join Generals Gracie and Ransom who were placing their skeleton brigades to repulse ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... worthy and singular good client, Sir Thomas; but he is somewhat headstrong and vehement, and will not listen to me. He is for settling matters by the sword, for making forcible entries and detainers, and ousting the tenants in possession, whereby he would render himself liable to arrest, fine, ransom, and forfeiture; instead of proceeding cautiously and decorously as the law directs, and as I advise, Sir Ralph, by writ of ejectione firmae or action of trespass, the which would assuredly establish his title, and restore him the house and lands. Or he may ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... to be expected that the poor clerk and agent should have command of sufficient funds to pay even the more moderate ransom which he was now prepared to accept, he had formed all his plans for eventually securing it. Something of course would have to be trusted to the pledged word of the man with whom he treated, but though he had no scruples about breaking his word, or his ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... Davis, John Masefield Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson Last of the Chiefs, Joseph A. Altsheler The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper Last of the Plainsmen, Zane Grey Lone Bull's Mistake, J. W. Shultz Ranche on the Oxhide, Henry Inman The Ransom of Red Chief and O. Henry Other Stories for Boys, Edited by F. K. Mathiews Scouting With Daniel Boone, Everett T. Tomlinson Scouting With Kit Carson, Everett T. Tomlinson Through College on Nothing a Year, Christian Gauss Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 20,000 ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

... The larger man, Michael, was in favor of offering the children for a ransom. The others would not consider it ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... distressing part of the subject. Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with how much more keenness the English feel the disclosures of my book than the Americans. I myself am blunted by use—by seeing, touching, handling the details. In dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in learning market prices of men, women, and children, I feel that I acquire a ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... we came into a garden-like plain, over which rose the towers of Enns, built by the ransom money paid to Austria for the deliverance of the Lion-hearted Richard. The country legends say that St. Florian was thrown into the river by the Romans in the third century, with a millstone around his neck, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... world as to sacrifice for it His only begotten Son. The Son so loved Mankind that He became Man, suffered for us and died upon the Cross, in order to ransom us from sin and ruin. We learn to know not only the malice, horror, and guilt of sin, but also the infinite mercy and love of God by pondering on the ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings

... never have written it. Poetry tickled him; but grammar was his chief delight, as it was the chief delight of all his friends and, one gathers, of all Baghdad. Here is an example: "Al-Mamun, having asked Al-Yazidi about something, received from him this answer: 'No; and may God accept my life as a ransom for yours, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... with the honey of logical persuasion, and there is a time to silence him with the argument of a heavily-directed club.' In your extremity a hostage is the only efficient safeguard. Seize the person of one of the gods themselves and raise a strong wall around your destiny by holding him to ransom." ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... our sovereigns. In a clause contained therein, moreover, I am ordered to come to these Felipinas islands and seek for certain people, lost here, who had belonged to the armada of Rui Lopez de Villalobos; and, in case I found them alive, to ransom them at his majesty's expense and deliver them out of their subjection to the infidels, in order to return them to their native lands and to the Christian faith in which they were born and reared. This I have successfully accomplished; of those who had come over in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... or thigh, towards the cure 10 pounds If taken by the Turks, 50 pounds towards his ransom. If he become infirm and unable to go to sea or maintain himself by age or sickness 6 pounds per annum. To their wives if they are killed ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... be surrendered; the Christian prisoners in their hands were to be given up unharmed; and the inhabitants undertook to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the kings within forty days, under the condition that the fighting men now taken prisoners were to be put to death should this ransom not ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... which she returned, saying, "Hasten, young man, from this spot, for a monster will soon appear, to whom, by my unhappy fate, I am destined. Should he discover thee, he will tear thee in pieces." "Princess," replied he, "I know the circumstance, and am resolved to become a ransom for thy beauty." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... go with Nora to the Bodleian, and sit patiently beside her while Nora copied Middle-English poetry from an early manuscript, worth a king's ransom. Nora got sevenpence a "folio," of seventy-two words, for her work. Connie thought the pay scandalous for so much learning; but Nora laughed at her, and took far more pleasure in the small cheque she received at the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... put it into his pocket; the gnome begged and implored to get it back, but instead of that, the peasant caught him up in his arms and carried him to his house, where he kept him as a captive until the other gnomes sent a herald to him and offered him a large ransom. Then the gnome was again set free and the peasant made his fortune ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen



Words linked to "Ransom" :   crime, cost, retrieval, recovery, criminal offense, law-breaking, defrayal, defrayment, change, offence, ransom money, payment, interchange, exchange, offense, criminal offence



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