"Ambuscade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Crows put up a good fight, and managed to squirm away from the gagging boxing-gloves and let out a yelp; but the heavy door of the gymnasium kept the secret mum, and there was something so surprising about the ambuscade in the dark that the Dozen soon had the half-dozen securely gagged and fettered. Then they were toted like meal-bags up the stairs of the chapel, and on up and up into the loft, and into the bell-tower. There they were laid out on the floor, and their angry eyes discovered that they ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... the woven ambuscade That the twining vines had made, They found the grapes, in clusters, Drinking up the shine and shade— Plumpt, like tiny skins of wine, With a vintage so divine That the tongue of Fancy tingled ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... left Ajunjer early, and made five hours only, because to-morrow there is no herbage until late in the evening. How tantalising to be obliged to advance thus by short stages towards an ambuscade! We take things pretty philosophically, however, and make geological observations. Overweg (who begins to show signs of weakness) is delighted that we have at length reached a region of granite. I think I must have passed a great number of rocks of the same kind between Ghadamez and Ghat. To the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... advance encountered a small force of the enemy, who, after a slight skirmishing, retreated down the road in such a manner as to lead Col. Williams to suspect that this movement was a feint intended to cover other movements or to draw the command into an ambuscade. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... heard the tale as I crossed just now, from an Indian, who was one in the ambuscade this noon—and in the woods on the other side, I found this lady, with her attendants, abiding the promise she made you last night, to welcome this lovely stranger with her ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... the right thenceforth becomes the more favorable side for marching. With great pomp, he recrossed the Monongahela just below the point where Turtle Creek enters from the east. Within a hillside ravine, but a hundred yards inland, the brilliant column fell into an ambuscade of Indians and French half-breeds, suffering that heart-sickening defeat which will ever live as one of the most tragic ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... by the bad manners of M. de Pradt. The hero himself was thinking of a retreat, when Mme de Stael came to release him from the ambuscade into which he had fallen. She retained him near the door, and there was a grave conversation on the English constitution. Mme de Stael could not reconcile the idea of political liberty, with the prevalence of servile forms remaining ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... Sibley determined to move upon the enemy, and on that day camp was broken at the fort, a boat constructed, and a crossing of the Minnesota river effected near the fort, to prevent the possibility of an ambuscade. Colonel Sibley's force consisted of the Sixth Regiment under Colonel Crooks, about three hundred men of the Third under Major Welch, several companies of the Seventh under Col. William R. Marshall, a small number of mounted men under Colonel ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... me to detail this midnight ramble; but it gave Garfield the exact position of the enemy. They had made a stand, and laid an ambuscade for him. Strongly posted on a semicircular hill, at the forks of Middle Creek, on both sides of the road, with cannon commanding its whole length, and hidden by the trees, they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... accompany me. I at length asked the reason and he told me that some foolish persons among them had suggested the idea that we were in league with the Pahkees and had come on in order to decoy them into an ambuscade where their enimies were waiting to receive them. but that for his part he did not believe it. I readily perceived that our situation was not entirely free from danger as the transision from suspicion to the confermation of the fact ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... valley of utter darkness Dripping with blood and tears; Over the hill of the skull, the little hill of great anguish, The ambuscade of Death. Into the no-man's-land of Hades Bearing despatches of hope to spirits in prison, Mortally stricken and triumphant Went the faithful Captain ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... vegetation ceased. Dwarf pines, not big enough to be Christmas trees, grew thinly among loose stones and gravel scaurs. Here and there a big boulder sat quiescent on a knoll, having paused there till the next rain in his long slide down the mountain. There was here no ambuscade for the snakes, you could see clearly where you trod; and yet the higher I went, the more abject and appealing became Chuchu's terror. He was an excellent master of that composite language in which dogs communicate with men, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them, he was red and breathless, but Fran's beribboned hat was clutched triumphantly in his hand. It was he who first discovered the ambuscade. He suddenly remembered, looked across the street, then fell, desperately wounded. The shots would have passed unheeded over Abbott's head, had not Fran called his ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... no vestiges of a disregard to right and wrong, which is the fault some people find with the laws of Lycurgus, allowing them well enough calculated to produce valour, but not to promote justice. Perhaps it was the Cryptia, as they called it, or ambuscade, if that was really one of this lawgiver's institutions, as Aristotle says it was, which gave Plato so bad an impression both of Lycurgus and his laws. The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the country, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... levels of grass where he presented a good target to men who might be eager to send a shot at him. There were other spots where the trail led into timber clumps and through tangles of brush where an ambuscade might be planned in perfect safety by an enemy; and there were the bastioned cliffs that towered above the trail at intervals, offering admirable hinding-places for any man ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... offered his services to guard her on the way home, and I gladly accepted them, for even then the chevalier's band would outnumber us; and while in a hand-to-hand fight I did not doubt we were much the better men, they would have greatly the advantage of us in being able to spring upon us from ambuscade and get the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... was thronged like a fair. When we entered the cove, a musketoon was fired at one of the canoes, as we imagined they might be full of men lying down, for they were all afloat, but no one was seen in them. Being doubtful whether their retreat proceeded from fear or a desire to decoy us into an ambuscade, we were determined not to be surprised, and therefore, running close in shore, we dropped the grappling near enough to reach them with our guns, but at too great a distance to be under any apprehensions from their treachery. The ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... make a sortie from St. Anthony's gate. Our horses' hooves will be muffled, no spur shall jingle, and no bridle clink. We will steal through the night like shadows. At the cross road some few of us will make an attack upon the enemy's left and beat a retreat. This will tempt him into our ambuscade and as I believe end in his rout. At nine, my ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the surroundings for signs of a ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... have hesitated about following the Mexicans into the forest, but all of the Texans were expert in woodcraft, and thought they could keep out of an ambuscade as well in the woods as out ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... learned that a Spanish force was in the vicinity, a detachment of marines and seamen was, after dark, pushed through a heavy surf, and landed, in the hope of taking them by surprise. But the enemy was on the alert, and on the following morning our little party fell into an ambuscade, which would have proved serious, had not Major Miller, who commanded the marines, promptly formed his men, who, attacking in turn, soon put the enemy to flight at the point of the bayonet, capturing their colours, and the greater portion of ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... commanders, set in irresistibly against them, before taking refuge inside the walls of the city. An hour after parting from Mr. Chambers I am wheeling briskly down the same road on the eastern slope of the pass where Mukhtar Pasha's ill-fated column was drawn into the fatal ambuscade that suddenly turned the fortunes of the day against them. While rapidly gliding down the gentle gradient, I fancy I can see the Cossack regiments, advancing toward the Turkish position, the unwary and over-confident ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... battlements. "The art military of the Homeric age is upon a level with the state of navigation just described, personal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale. The chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights of romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a ditch or any other ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most distressing {45}—who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something that gave ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... passed by, their famous captain at their head. One of them—an old friend—reined in long enough to tell me they were off to lie in wait for a small British patrol, which, a native had told them, daily passed a certain spot suitable for an ambuscade. ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... was an era of agony that minute, in which, after avoiding the ambuscade that he felt sure awaited him at the door, he had nothing on earth he could do but wait and see ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... no fear of an ambuscade?" exclaimed Fred, who began to entertain an opinion that the lieutenant was not well posted ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the purple was the Prince Imperial, whose fate beggars tragedy; who went to gather laurels on an African desert and fell a victim to a savage ambuscade—his beautiful body stuck almost as full of cruel darts as that of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were ultimately conquered. This wily but brave frontiersman recommended a new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... speculative comprehension at the windows. Any of them contained possible death. Each building was a possible ambuscade. This was warfare in that modern jungle, a great city. Every street was a canyon, every building a mountain. We had not changed much from primitive man, despite the war automobiles that ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... weeks, travel through Edinburgh up to London. But these reports were vague and contradictory; and the very worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth. The Whig version of the story was that the old robber Mac Ian had laid an ambuscade for the soldiers, that he had been caught in his own snare, and that he and some of his clan had fallen sword in hand. The Jacobite version, written at Edinburgh on the twenty-third of March, appeared in the Paris Gazette of the seventh ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... they would not do so in places not to their advantage. Thus the path was cleared, upon this day, without encountering any enemy or sighting their fort. Again the men returned to the fleet for the night. On the third day, as the work of reconnoitering was proceeding, a large ambuscade of Indians attacked us in the open near a palm-grove. As was learned later, they numbered about two thousand. They attacked us with the greatest fury and determination, in small bodies of skilful troops. As the soldiers were ordered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... natives had been won by the diplomatic French, but their aid proved of no avail. The British Parliament sent over General Braddock in 1757, and he perished with a large portion of his army in the celebrated ambuscade from which Washington escaped.[17] For a time French energy made the war seem not unequal; but the number of French in America was small; the home Government of Louis XV seemed wholly lost in sloth and indifferent to the result. The English ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... sea-coast, and came to where two roads led up the mountain to the town. One of the roads was open and inviting; the branches of the trees being lopped, and all the underwood cleared away. Here the Indians had stationed an ambuscade to take the Spaniards in the rear. The other road was almost closed up by trees and bushes cut down and thrown across each other. Esquibel was wary and distrustful; he suspected the stratagem, and chose the encumbered road. The town was about a league and ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... if he had not been locked up in Mafeking all through those precious months at the beginning of the war, it is no idle guesswork to say that we should have lost fewer men and fewer guns by surprise and ambuscade. ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... principle, who rushed on the bayonets in the name of manhood and truth and sincerity. Godwin when he came in his systematic treatise to describe how a free people would conduct a defensive war, declared that it would scorn to resort to a stratagem or an ambuscade. In the same spirit Holcroft hearing that a warrant was out against him for high treason, walked boldly into the Chief Justice's court, and announced that he came to be put upon his trial "that if I am a guilty man, the whole extent of my guilt may become notorious, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... Vivonne had laid his ambuscade with discretion. With a closed carriage and a band of chosen ruffians he had left the palace a good half-hour before the king's messengers, and by the aid of his sister's gold he had managed that their journey should not be a very rapid one. On reaching the branch road he ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... successfully "tackle" with his little detachment. The major rejoiced that the captain was sensible enough to discontinue the pursuit at the Niobrara crossing. Beyond that there were numerous ridges, winding ravines, even a shallow canyon or two,—the very places for ambuscade; and it would be an easy matter for a small party of the Sioux to drop back and give the pursuers a bloody welcome. No! Terry had done admirably so long as there was a chance of square fighting, and his subsequent moves, barring the one dash down-stream after ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... pursuit, and those they caught they mowed down, horse and man, and those that fell they slew. There was no pause until they came up with the Assyrian foot. [24] Here at last they drew rein in fear of some hidden ambuscade, and Astyages led his army off. The exploit of his cavalry pleased him beyond measure, but he did not know what he could say to Cyrus. It was he to whom the engagement was due, and the victory; but the boy's daring was on the verge of madness. Even ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... marched forward, and took possession of the fortress of Exorogorgon. The Sultan Solimaun was on the alert, with a superior force. A party of Crusaders, which had been detached from the fort, and stationed at a little distance as an ambuscade, were surprised and cut to pieces, and Exorogorgon invested on all sides. The siege was protracted for eight days, during which the Christians suffered the most acute agony from the want of water. It is hard ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the fragrant cedar's shade The settler's crafty foe, With toilsome march and midnight ambuscade To lay his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... The moon, too, had grown faint, and the gray mists of the morning were lying along the lower levels. Sounds, mingled and far ahead, told of the presence of a marching host, and Sergius led his troop on a more oblique course to gain the flank of the foe and lessen the chances of detection and ambuscade. ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... joy, as a fisherman might, who after long hours of mortal waiting sees a fish of good size imprudently approaching his net. Eager for his prey, he threw aside his brush, quickly descended the ladder with the agility of a young man and ran to place himself in ambuscade near the door, where he waited with bated breath. As soon as Gilbert appeared, he rushed upon him, seized him by the arm, and looked upon him with eyes which seemed to say: "You are caught, and you won't ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... soothsayers, he took the field with his colleague, and harassed Hannibal much in the country between the towns of Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined battle, but, learning that a force was detached from the Roman army to attack the Epizephyrian Lokrians, he laid an ambuscade on the mountain near Petelia, and defeated them with a loss of two thousand five hundred men. This excited Marcellus, and he led his forces nearer to those of Hannibal. There was between the two camps a hill of some strength as a military post, overgrown with wood. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... It was here that a party of French under the Chevalier d'Eulx landed in 1545 to get some fresh water. The process was tedious, the stream being so small, and the chevalier and some of his party, wandering inland, were caught in an ambuscade. He and most of the others were killed, though they defended themselves bravely. South of Shanklin the chalk-cliffs are bold and lofty, and off these pretty shores the "Eurydice" was lost in a squall, March 24, 1878, when returning from her training-cruise in the West Indies. It was at ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the killing of Riley Luffsey. Gregor Lang, who was the Marquis's most caustic critic, was Roosevelt's warm friend. "Dutch Wannigan," moreover, who had been saved only by a miracle in the memorable ambuscade, was one of Roosevelt's cow-hands. That summer of 1885 he was night-herder for the Maltese Cross "outfit." He was a genial soul and Roosevelt liked him. No doubt he was fascinated also by his remarkable memory, ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... The boundless sky above, they know no day Of their return. Their breasts are ever bared To the pitiless steel and all the wounds of war Unspeakable. Methinks I see them now, Dust-mantled in the bitter wind, a host Of Tartar warriors in ambuscade. Our leader scorns the foe. He would give battle Upon the threshold of the camp. The stream Besets a grim array where order reigns, Though many hearts may beat, where discipline Is all, and life of no account. The spear Now works its iron ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... their desperate defence of the pass, he put himself at the head of a large body of the cavalry; and as these infidels are mounted on horses unmatched either in speed or wind, performed a long circuit, traversed the stony ridge of hills at a more northerly defile, and placed himself in ambuscade in the wooded plain I have mentioned, with the hope of making an unexpected assault upon the Emperor and his army, at the very time when they might be supposed to reckon upon an undisputed retreat. This surprise would certainly have taken place, and it ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... herdsmen departed, trotting rapidly off toward the village, but they stopped every here and there, at all the highest spots on the road, as though they were looking out for some hidden ambuscade, always keeping near enough to Orso and his sister to be able to come to their assistance if necessary. And old Polo ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... Ticonderoga with five hundred men, on hearing of the presence of this scouting party of provincials, and was now near at hand. The sound of the muskets gave him exact information as to the position of their camp. Hastening forward, he laid an ambuscade on the line of march of his foes, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... that, in all its parts; old treaty of Breslau, to be guaranteed, to be actually kept. To me Silesia sure;—from you, Polish Majesty, one million crowns as damages for the trouble and cost this Triple Ambuscade of yours has given me; one million crowns, 150,000 pounds we will say; and all other requisitions to cease on the day of signature. These are my terms: accept these; then wholly, As you were, Empress-Queen and you, and all surviving ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a council of his officers, to consider the plan of operations, or rather to propose to them the extraordinary plan on which he had himself decided. This was to lay an ambuscade for the Inca, and take him prisoner in the face of his whole army. It was a project full of peril, bordering as it might well seem on desperation. But the circumstances of the Spaniards were desperate. Whichever way they turned they were menaced by the most appalling dangers. And better ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... the scrub became quite scanty in a wide belt that terminated in a low range of hills. The slopes of the rising ground were fairly steep except at a gap in the centre, where a deep ravine had been utilized by the makers of the road. It was an ideal spot for an ambuscade. Sheltering behind the cacti that abundantly covered the hill the Haussas could extend on a fairly broad front, and concentrate a heavy fire upon any enemy retiring along the path. The maxim on its tripod ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... observed that nobody landed, one of them came out of the wood, with a bow and arrows in his hand, and made signs for the boat to come to the place where he stood. This the officer very prudently declined, as he would then have been within bow-shot of an ambuscade, and after waiting some time, and finding that a conference could be procured upon no other terms, he returned back to the ship. It was certainly in my power to have destroyed many of these unfriendly people, by firing my great guns into the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... with 200 horse. I stood drawn up without the city with 800 more, ready to bring him off, if he should be put to the worst, which happened accordingly; for, not having discovered neither the country nor the enemy as he ought, Sir William Brereton drew him into an ambuscade; so that before he came up with Sir William's forces, near enough to charge, he finds about 300 horse in his rear. Though he was surprised at this, yet, being a man of a ready courage, he boldly faces about with 150 of his men, leaving the other fifty to ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... exclusive of Indians, was then on the island. He withdrew to his fort at Frederica, and anxiously awaited reinforcements from Carolina. By turning to account the desertion of a French soldier he precipitated the attack of the Spaniards, and on their march to Frederica they fell into an ambuscade. Great slaughter ensued, and they retreated precipitately. The place of conflict is to this day known as "Bloody Marsh." The Spaniards retreated south along the coast in their vessels, and on their way attacked Fort William, at the southern extremity of Cumberland Island, but were repulsed with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... which was that they recognized, by some peculiarity of their headgear, that these men belonged to the tribe of the Dilwas, the most ferocious and unscrupulous of the Bedouin, who had evidently laid an ambuscade for us at this point with the intention of seizing our caravan. When I thought of all my efforts in Abyssinia, of the length of my journey and of the dangers and fatigues which I had endured, I could not bear to think of this total disaster coming upon me at the last instant and robbing me ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chosen a gully for their ambuscade, but they had made the mistake of leaving their horses too far away from their place of concealment. And when they rushed across the stretch of level that extended from the gully to the draw, half a dozen of them dropped before they had traveled a quarter ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sworn to marry you within the hour, I would break the oath, and God would pardon it, for no man has a right to embrace temptation and damn himself by a life-long lie. You choose to make it a hard battle for me; you are neither an honest friend nor a generous foe. No matter, I have fallen into an ambuscade and must cut my way out as I can, and as I will, for there is enough of this Devil's work in the world ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... mistake at all; how the only slip was that the battalion walked into a whole cote of unsuspected machine-gun nests, but how the second battalion going up and round the shore of the hill to the left had taken the boche on the flank and cleaned him out of his pretty little ambuscade; how there were tidings of great cheer filtering back from all along the line and so forth and so on. Ginsburg broke ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... In any case, security was certainly insecure with such a fort as Lychnidus untaken in their rear. The garrison of that fort had been reinforced by many cohorts of the regular army who had flocked thither at the general's signal, and with these Sabinianus prepared a formidable ambuscade. He sent a considerable number of infantry round by unfrequented paths over the mountains, and ordered them to take up a commanding but concealed position, and to rush forth from thence at a given signal. He ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... placed on a rising ground, planted with sixteen great guns, with several other heaps of earth round about for covering their men: the pirates having landed a league off this fort, advanced by degrees towards it; but the governor having espied their landing, had placed an ambuscade to cut them off behind, while he should attack them in front. This the pirates discovered, and getting before, they defeated it so entirely, that not a man could retreat to the castle: this done, Lolonois, with his companions, ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... the field of combat lay By the tomb's self; how he sprang from ambuscade- Captured Death, caught him in that pair ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... light cavalry raided past the Chinese capital into the province of Szchuen, and returned laden with the spoil of countless cities. These successes were crowned by a signal victory over the emperor in person. Kaotsou was drawn into an ambuscade in which his troops had no chance with their more active adversaries, and, to save himself from capture, Kaotsou had no alternative but to take refuge in the town of Pingching, where he was closely beleaguered. It was impossible to ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... reported to them that these were ensnared, whilst they march in great haste, in order to support them, without even retaining the author [of the report] who had deceived them, he being a Latin enemy instead of a Roman soldier, they themselves fell into an ambuscade. There, whilst they suffer and commit great havoc, making resistance on disadvantageous ground solely by the valour of the soldiers, the enemy in the mean time in another quarter attacked the Roman camp ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... he taught his enemies how to employ it against himself. Hannibal was a man who never left anything to chance, and whether his generals were trusted to draw the enemy from a strong position into the open field, or to decoy it into an ambuscade, everything was foreseen, and as far as possible provided against. He took care that his troops and his animals should go into action fresh, well-fed, and well-armed, and more than once had the wounds of both horses and men washed ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... his comrades of the garrison of Sainte Menehould had not forgotten their ambuscade, and ever since midnight had been collected near the gibbet, to save their friend, although he was not overwise, and also to capture prisoners and whatever else they could. When they arrived they took up their position, and put a sentinel in a tree to watch when the Troyes folk ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... Ville-Marie, in order to lay siege to it. They knew beforehand that French arms and gunpowder were rather formidable opponents, especially if they should happen to meet another de Maisonneuve, and, as usual, had recourse to concealment. They formed their ambuscade in a ditch which they dug on the very ground that now forms the garden of the Congregation convent. There they lay hid, reconnoitering the strength of the place, and having matured their plans, commenced hurlling stones and shooting poisoned ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... having been somewhat minimized by the townspeople, Pierre and his wife, with a view to establishing a strong claim for subsequent reward, bribed Antoine Macquart to lead the Republicans left in Plassans to an attack on the town hall. To meet this he prepared a strong ambuscade, and the Republicans were repulsed with considerable loss. As a result of this treachery, Pierre was regarded by his fellow-citizens as the saviour of the town, and the Government subsequently appointed him Receiver of Taxes, decorating him with the ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... territory made tributary to the conqueror. In a subsequent battle Osai Tutu was surprised and killed. His courtiers and wives were made prisoners, with much goods. This enraged the Ashantees, and they reeked vengeance on the heads of the inhabitants of Kromanti, who laid the disastrous ambuscade. They failed, however, to recover the body of their slain king; but many of his attendants were retaken, and numerous enemies, whom they sacrificed to the manes of their ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... considerable amount of amusement out of this unexpected happening. He evidently considered that he had been in for more or less luck simply because he happened to be in Fred's company when the other ran into the ambuscade. Colon was not averse to an occasional measure of excitement, and although not all considered a pugnacious fellow, he could at the same time hold his own when ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... time both Tresler and Fyles were looking out for the leader, the man of all whom they desired to capture. But the darkness, which had favored the ambuscade, now defeated their object. In the mob of struggling humanity it was difficult enough to distinguish friend from foe, let alone to discover any one person. The ranks of the "deputies" had closed right in and a desperate hand-to-hand ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... smoking, looking sometimes on the solemn front of the old palatial mansion, and sometimes breathing a white film up to the stars, impatient, like the enamoured Aladdin, watching in ambuscade for the emergence of the Princess Badroulbadour. But honest Mark forgot that young ladies do not always come out quite alone, and jump unassisted into their vehicles. And in fact not only did Lord Chelford assist the fair ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... it appears to have the desired effect with the Carliles and their adherents. They carry on the war in ambuscade, and are selling, without fear, books and 77 pamphlets, of which but for the Constitutional Committee, as they call themselves, perhaps half the world would have known nothing. Such, however, is frequently the effect of intemperate zeal, and these Gentlemen have blown into ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... quickly done. Scarce has the ambuscade been set, when the trampling of horses heard down the defile tells of a cavalcade coming up, and presently the foremost files appear rounding an angle of rock. Dim as is the light, the horseman leading can be told to be the young Tovas cacique, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... spot where the road was particularly rough, and ran across some marsh land, he perceived a short distance from him a dark shadow, which his practised eye detected at once as a body of crouching men. Reining up his horse within a few yards of the ambuscade, he wrapped his cloak round his bridle-arm and summoned the party ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... firing; and I think one or two guns had been let off, but happily they did no mischief. We had hailed them several times; but they not hearing, we received no answer, which was the cause of our firing. The boat was then sent on board of her, and she proved to be the Ambuscade man of war, to my no small disappointment. We returned to Portsmouth, without having been in any action, just at the trial of Admiral Byng (whom I saw several times during it): and my master having left the ship, and gone ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... a rumor, generally credited, that Bragg has led the enemy, in Kentucky, into an ambuscade, and slaughtered 25,000. A traveler from the West reports having read an account to this effect in the Louisville Journal. If the Journal really says so—that number won't cover the loss. The Abolitionist journals are incorrigible liars. And, indeed, so are many ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... department d'Ille-et-Vilaine, in 1799. Through a secret revelation made to his friend the Marquis de Montauran on the part of Mlle. de Verneuil, the Comte de Bauvan caused, indirectly, the Massacre des Bleus at Vivetiere. Later, surprised in an ambuscade by soldiers of the Republic, he was made a prisoner by Mlle. de Verneuil and owed his life to her; for this reason he became entirely devoted to her, assisting as a witness at her marriage ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... turn to the right revealed the scene of the ambuscade, where in one of the lateral openings Selim and his companion had been trapped. The bodies of men and horses had been pulled clear of the track by the advance guard as they went by a few minutes earlier. The ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... forty feet, and occasionally it diminished so as not to allow the passage of more than five or six persons abreast. In short, there could be no place in the world better adapted for the consummation of an ambuscade, and it was no more than natural that we should look carefully to our arms as we entered upon it. When I now think of our egregious folly, the chief subject of astonishment seems to be, that we should have ever ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he greeted me. "I have summoned you to receive the grateful thanks of the people of Kaol, for had it not been for your heroic bravery in daring fate to warn us of the ambuscade we must surely have fallen into the well-laid trap. Tell me more of yourself—from what country you come, and what errand brings you to ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... men directly in his rear, forgetting their orders, suddenly called out, 'Colonel, the British!' faced about, and putting spurs to their horses, were soon out of sight. The colonel, looking around, discovered that he was in the centre of a powerful ambuscade, into which the enemy had silently allowed him to pass, without his observing them. They lined both sides of the road, and had been stationed there to pick up any straggling party of the Americans that might chance to pass. Immediately on finding they were discovered, ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... waylay any party of Hurons who might venture ashore. A Huron war chief, named tienne Annaotaha, whose life is described as a succession of conflicts and adventures, and who is said to have been always in luck, landed with a few companions, and fell into an ambuscade of the Iroquois. He prepared to defend himself, when they called out to him, that they came not as enemies, but as friends, and that they brought wampum-belts and presents to persuade the Hurons to forget the past, go back with them to their country, become their adopted countrymen, and live ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... The second was the battle of Beder. The history of the battle is thus given by Abulfeda: "The apostle, hearing that a caravan of the Meccans was coming home from Syria, escorted by Abu Sofian at the head of thirty men, placed a number of soldiers in ambuscade to intercept it. Abu Sofian, being informed thereof by his spies, sent word immediately to Mecca, whereupon all the principal men except Abu Laheb—who, however, sent Al Asum son of Hesham in his stead—marched out to his assistance, making in all nine hundred and fifty men, whereof two hundred ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... that way; it is dangerous for you in the daytime"—it did lend itself to an ambuscade, and persons who knew Wilkes Booth assert having seen him prowling around—"it is ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... drama in full view of the men who lay in ambush. Jugurtha proceeded to the same spot amidst a large retinue of his friends; it had been agreed that all the partners to the conference should come unarmed.[1190] A sign was given, and the men of the ambuscade had sprung from every side upon the mound. Jugurtha's retinue was cut down to a man; the king himself was seized, bound and handed over to Sulla. In a short while he was the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... suffered his vanity to overcome him so far as to accept of the proposal, and the next morning with ten of his sailors, all dressed in their best clothes, went on shore to this collation. But before they had reached half way, they were set upon by a party of Indians who lay in ambuscade, and with one flight of their poisoned arrows laid them all upon the ground, except Kennedy and another, who escaped to the top of a mountain, from whence they leaped into the sea, and were with much difficulty taken up by a boat ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... fifty thousand francs of government money to the monks of Saint-Bernard; to which I may add that there is between those two places a spot called the Maison-Blanche, which seems to me admirably adapted for an ambuscade." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... to catch an Elliott. For a while, in the night and the black water that was deep as to his saddle-girths, he wrought with his staff like a smith at his stithy, and great was the sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambuscade was burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-ball in him, three knife wounds, the loss of his front teeth, a broken rib and bridle, and a dying horse. That was a race with death that the laird rode! In the mirk night, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came softly from the swaying pine and stunted oak and juniper far on high. The whiff that swept to their nostrils from the lower depths of the canon told its own grewsome tale. There, scattered along the stream bed, lay the festering remains of their four-footed comrades, first victims of the ambuscade. Death lurked about their refuge then on every side, and was even invading their little fortress. Was this to be the end, after all? Was there neither help nor ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... Mutter'd some words, withheld her arm, And kindly stopp'd the unfinish'd charm. But though not changed to owl or bat, Or something more indelicate; Yet, as your tongue has run too fast, Your boasted beauty must not last. No more shall frolic Cupid lie In ambuscade in either eye, From thence to aim his keenest dart To captivate each youthful heart: No more shall envious misses pine At charms now flown, that once were thine No more, since you so ill behave, Shall ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... taken over the 6th Kentucky and 9th Tennessee of my brigade—aggregating nearly six hundred men—and also the two pieces of artillery. These regiments were moved beyond Burkesville and placed in a position which served all the purposes of an ambuscade. When the enemy approached, one or two volleys caused his column to recoil in confusion. General Morgan instantly charged it with Quirk's scouts and some companies of the 9th Tennessee, and not only prevented it from rallying, but drove it all the way ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... that these shots were the first fired in anger for a hundred and fifty years. He heard bullets whacking over his head, felt a splash of molten metal sting his ear, and perceived without looking that the whole opposite facade, an unmasked ambuscade of red police, was crowded and bawling ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... whate'er a chief may do, To check the headlong fury of that crew; In vain their stubborn ardour he would tame, The hand that kindles cannot quench the flame; The wary foe alone hath turned their mood, And shown their rashness to that erring brood: 940 The feigned retreat, the nightly ambuscade, The daily harass, and the fight delayed, The long privation of the hoped supply, The tentless rest beneath the humid sky, The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer's art, And palls the patience of his baffled art, Of these they had not deemed: the battle-day They could encounter ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... waiter's hand, I proceeded cautiously towards the door, and opened it stealthily. My caution was, however, needless; for a large screen was drawn across this part of the room, completely concealing the door, closing which behind me, I took my place beneath the shelter of this ambuscade, determined on no account to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... concealment]. — N. camouflage; mimicry; hiding place; secret place, secret drawer; recess, hold, holes and corners; closet, crypt, adytum[obs3], abditory[obs3], oubliette. ambush, ambuscade; stalking horse; lurking hole, lurking place; secret path, back stairs; retreat &c. (refuge) 666. screen, cover, shade, blinker; veil, curtain, blind, cloak, cloud. mask, visor, vizor[obs3], disguise, masquerade dress, domino. pitfall &c. (source of danger) 667; trap &c. (snare) 545. V. blend ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Turk before him, he backed toward the shadowed recess, with the one idea of shielding Cara. But the darker spot was the door behind which Sayed Ayoub lay in ambuscade, and as Karyl reached it, it swung open, showing them against a background as bright as though they were ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... that is more, I fear, than the First Lord of the Admiralty did. For the Ruler of the King's Navy made a bee-line for the Lieutenant-Commander's own private dug-out the moment he came aboard at Calais, and he remained in ambuscade ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... sea. Had Courtenay proposed to sail away into the Pacific she would have listened with placid approval. She was by his side; that sufficed. For the rest, they lived in the midst of adventures. What did it matter if they were called on to run the gauntlet of one more ambuscade—or a dozen, if it ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... dieth, so dieth the wise, and there is no difference; it was the chance of the sea, and the ill reward of a humane action—a melancholy end for such a man—like the end of a warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl or ambuscade. But so it was with all these men. They were cut off in the flower of their days, and few of them laid their bones in the sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the service which they had chosen, and they did not ask the wages ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... next day the barbarians prepared for a final struggle. Marius planted an ambuscade of mounted camp-followers, headed by a few foot and horse in some ravines on the enemy's rear. [Sidenote: Circumstances of the battle.] He drew the legions up in front of the camp, and the cavalry went ahead to the plain. The barbarians charged ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... march, the militia forming in single file, each one walking by the side of an emigrant, and carrying his musket on the left arm. As soon as the women were close to the ambuscade, Higbee, who was in charge of the detachment, gave a signal, which had evidently been prearranged, by saying to his command, "Do your duty"; and the horrible butchery commenced. Most of the men were ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... have they sought to track his band over the plains, along the desert and into the wild recesses of the mountains, but it has always turned out a failure. Bab Azoun, on his native heath, laughs them to scorn, and once laid an ambuscade in ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... cantons held at Wyl, the abbot wished to conduct his cause in person. Zurich, to whom his absence was all-important, sent an order to the governor-general secretly to fill the castle with a garrison of trusty men. Kilian, learning this and fearing an ambuscade, staid away; but the people of the abbacy appeared before the deputies of the cantons with a petition, which showed that they knew how to carry out the doctrine of the unscriptural character of spiritual lordship to a further extent than was pleasant even to Zurich ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... was by Heav'n decreed our last: For, when the fatal horse, descending down, Pregnant with arms, o'erwhelm'd th' unhappy town She feign'd nocturnal orgies; left my bed, And, mix'd with Trojan dames, the dances led Then, waving high her torch, the signal made, Which rous'd the Grecians from their ambuscade. With watching overworn, with cares oppress'd, Unhappy I had laid me down to rest, And heavy sleep my weary limbs possess'd. Meantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid, And from beneath my head my sword ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil |
