"Ambuscade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sword. The pirates next sailed into the Lake of Maracaibo, landed their forces, and proceeded at once to attack the castle that guarded the entrance to the harbor. The governor had made judicious dispositions for its defence, having formed an ambuscade for the purpose of bringing the pirates between two fires. His design, however, in this respect, was frustrated, for those forming the ambuscade, being discovered and routed, fled to the town, the inhabitants of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that our farewells were smuggled through under an ambuscade of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was begun. The figures vanished, the steps died away along the silent city front; on board, the men had returned to their labours, the captain to his solitary cigar; and after that long and complex day of business ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "The ambuscade was well-planned, and the Southlanders had enlisted the aid of the Painted Men, to their shame be it said. So our brethren found themselves hemmed in at every point. Yet they sold their lives at a good price, and they are mourning to-day in the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... permission. Sergeant, a fellow of Draney's type is always hard to catch, and it's bad judgment to try to catch him until you have evidence enough to hang him. So, for the present, I'm certain that we'd better let the scoundrel go. But the flying of that kite means that there's danger of an ambuscade. This is the first time I've commanded in the field and I don't intend to be cut to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... results. On the 18th of September, Colonel 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 McPhail, and a battery ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... 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
... hovered around in such energetic and persevering hostility, that not a trapper could leave the camp without danger of falling into an ambuscade. The Indians avoided any decisive conflict, but their war-whoops and yells of defiance, like the howlings of wolves, could be heard, by day and by night, in the forests all around them. Unless the traps were carefully guarded, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... towards the spot where the assassins have placed themselves in ambuscade, satisfies him that he can. The fog favours him. Through it he cannot see them; and should ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... 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, and he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Chief addressed them several times before they would move they seemed very reluctant to 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 Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... that all her glory should be demeaned by pitiless eclipse, and her dome of delight become the valley of humiliation! Is there no help? I said. Can no hand lead her gently another way? Can no voice warn her of the black shadow that lies in ambuscade? None. Just as the young girl leaves her tender home, and goes fearless to her future,—to the future which brings sadness for her smiling, and patience for her hope, and pain for her bloom, and the cold requital of kindness, or the unrequital ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... express purpose of making money for the support and pleasure of his family, and to accommodate all its whims, with the man before me,—barely forty-eight, without a wrinkle in his firm, ruddy face, and only an occasional white hair, in ambuscade among his fair, curly locks. My exclusive right over him I felt doubtful about. I gave my attention to the road also, and remarked that I ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... cry, a clash of swords, and a clang of trumpets uttering strange sounds; and, as the regiment of the Princes of Savoy was defiling along a passage between the ruins, a troop of Tartars that had been in ambuscade behind, sprang out, uttering the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... pretending to be patriots, he was led to turn aside from the road upon which he marched out into a somewhat narrow clearing in the forest near a small work called Fort Keyser, and was killed nearly two miles from Fort Paris, being attacked on every side in what amounted to an ambuscade. ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... begged his companions to join him in this adventure. He was so much beloved that forty or fifty gentlemen gladly accompanied him. But the castellan of the fortress at Binasco had news of this through his spies, and laid a trap for the Frenchmen; he had a strong troop placed in ambuscade on the road, and made sure of success. But, though taken by surprise, the Good Knight fought like a lion, and with cries of "France! France!" led his little company again and again to the attack, for, as he told them, if news of this reached Milan not one would escape. In fact, so fierce ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... must know that 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 should ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... of war was not known, nor the war-whoop heard, save on days of festivity, when the achievements of former times were commemorated in a kind of mimic warfare, in which the chiefs and warriors displayed their prowess, and illustrated their former adroitness, by laying the ambuscade, surprizing their enemies, and performing many accurate manoeuvres with the tomahawk and scalping knife; thereby preserving and handing to their children, the theory of Indian warfare. During that period they also pertinaciously observed the religious rites of their progenitors, by attending ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... it far up on the thinly forested crest of San Jacinto where the buck, bedded in the low brush between the bosses of the hills, kept a look out across the gullies from which Greenhow attempted to ambuscade him. Day by day the man would vary the method of approach until almost within rifle range, and then the wind would change or there would be the click of gravel underfoot, or the scrape of a twig on stiff overalls, and suddenly the long oval ears would slope forward, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... of combat lay By the tomb's self; how he sprang from ambuscade- Captured Death, caught him in that ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jonquiere. He had written to my son demanding enormous pensions and rewards; but meeting with a refusal, he went into Spain, where he promised Alberoni to carry off my son, and deliver him into his hands, dead or alive. He brought one hundred men with him, whom he put in ambuscade near Paris. He missed my son only by a quarter of an hour in the Bois de Boulogne, which the latter had passed through in his way to La Muette, where he went to dine with his daughter. La Jonquiere having thus failed, retired in great vexation to the Low Countries, where he boasted ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... the point where the bear would have to climb over, in order to get into the pen, Mrs. Gammit removed several of the loose boards which formed the flooring of the loft. Beside this opening, at an early hour, she had ensconced herself in secure ambuscade, with three pails of the hottest possible hot water close beside her. The pails were well swathed in blankets, quilts, and hay, to keep up the temperature of their contents. And she had also a pitchfork "layin' handy," wherewith to ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the traitor wants; he goes to Charlot and proposes an ambuscade to lie in wait for the two boys and get rid of them; his real purpose being to get rid of the king's son as well ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... high), and, having hewn them, to carry them underground (they weigh on an average between sixty and seventy tons), and finally to range them in rows here in these strange chambers, where they stand as if in ambuscade on either side of us as we pass? Each in its turn has contained quite comfortably the mummy of a bull Apis, armoured in plates of gold. But in spite of their weight, in spite of their solidity which effectively ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... looking him full in the face. "I am opposed to any sort of underhand games; when you are not strong enough to attack your enemy openly and honestly, you ought to be too proud to shoot at him from an ambuscade, like a coward and bandit. The bullet may miss him, and he who fired it dies as a traitor, overwhelmed with disgrace. I have concluded this alliance with France; I am now her ally, and thereby compelled to furnish her an auxiliary corps ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... patiently lying in ambush watching a paddling of wild ducks, which were a little beyond the range of his gun. Whilst in a state of doubt and anxiety as to whether they would approach near enough to be shot, he suddenly observed them raise their heads and swim towards the shore apart from his ambuscade; and, whilst wondering at the cause of so strange a proceeding, his attention was directed to a fox which was skipping about on the shore, and evidently enticing the ducks to approach. This accidental discovery ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... take for this?" answered the cautious soldier—"A man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... seeming irresolute, as if in deliberation whether to fight or fly, the infantry also retreated, the enemy suddenly rushed from the crowded gates, after they had made an impression on the Roman line, are drawn on to the place of ambuscade in their eagerness to press on and pursue. Upon this the Romans, rising suddenly, attack the enemy's line in flank. The standards of those who had been left behind on guard, advancing from the camp, further increase the panic. The Fidenates, thus dismayed ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... hardly had time to return from the donjon, than D'Artagnan placed himself in ambuscade close to the Rue du Petit-Muse, so as to see every one who might leave the gates of the Bastille. After he had spent an hour on the look-out from the "Golden Portcullis," under the pent-house of which he could keep himself a little in the shade, D'Artagnan ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... authority. The very night before the column reaches the borders of the reservation the leading chiefs come in camp to interview the officers, shake hands, beg tobacco, and try on their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there are only a handful, and plan the morrow's ambuscade and massacre. Vae victis! There are women and children among the garrisons along the Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans in the horror of this morning's tidings. But Sibley is miles and miles ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... in so much shade, That they may more successful rise, Starting from such soft ambuscade, To catch and kill ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... can perceive 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 ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Thermopylae, the Greeks, issuing forth from an ambuscade, threw themselves on his rearguard, which they cut to pieces. It was in this miserable state that the Gauls gained the camp of Heraclea. They remained there for a few days before setting out on their northward route. All the bridges of the Sperchius had been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... well-laid ambush was captured and killed. This so excited the Indians that they raised the war-whoop. Fifty English soldiers were sent from the fort to ascertain the occasion of the yelling, and were drawn into the ambuscade. A volley from the woods on either side swept them down, and before the remainder could recover from the panic into which they were thrown by the volley, they were assailed with swords, bayonets and tomahawks, and but four out of the party ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... 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
... 'intent was particular against Sir Walter Ralegh and others.' He thought this a proof that 'it was no matter of treason against her Majesty, but rather a manifestation of the contrary.' Essex gave out that his rising was prompted by a discovery that there was an ambuscade of musketeers placed upon the water by the device of Lord Cobham and Ralegh, to murder him in the way as he passed. Blount, at his trial, confessed there was no foundation for the allegation. In reply to Cecil, who asked if he thought Cobham and Ralegh had projected the murder of the Earl, he ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... coralillos, which last by preference inhabit trees, still abound in the forests of Mataran as in days of old, and wage a regular guerilla warfare against the invaders. Woe betide the belated pedestrian, or even horseman, if he happens to pass under a tree which forms the ambuscade of a coralillo snake! Cobras and other reptiles seldom attack men, and will generally try to avoid them, unless accidentally trodden upon, but these guerilleros of the forest, the tree serpents, lie in wait for ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... 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 ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... within striking reach, well, then this were a pleasant march from Neville to Binch, for that is where I'm told we are going. But, faith, I don't like the sight of this country in which we are being entangled. If Conde has any head, and he is not a fool, he could arrange a fine ambuscade, and catch those mighty and vain-glorious Imperialists and that fool Souches like rats in a trap. Or he might make a sudden attack on the flank and cut our army into two, as you divide a caterpillar crawling ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... and property unprepared, because sham fights are thought to be ridiculous? Will not the legislator require that his citizens shall practise war daily, performing lesser exercises without arms, while the combatants on a greater scale will carry arms, and take up positions, and lie in ambuscade? And let their combats be not without danger, that opportunity may be given for distinction, and the brave man and the coward may receive their meed of honour or disgrace. If occasionally a man is killed, there is ...
— Laws • Plato
... to a far-distant region, and under the leadership of a brave and skillful chief named Osceola they resisted the troops sent to coerce them into obedience. The most memorable event of the war was the massacre of Major Dade and about one hundred soldiers in an ambuscade, December 28, 1835. On the same day Osceola with a small party of followers killed and scalped General Wiley Thomson, of the United States army and five of Thomson's friends. Before the opening of hostilities Thomson had put Osceola in irons on account of his refractory ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... murmured the stranger, "it seems that I have gone astray; if the chateau is on the other side, where can I establish my ambuscade?" ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... much acumen. And from his absence her courage gained strength. If it could only be prolonged until Ahmed reached her. That the Sheik would come she knew, her faith in him was unbounded. If he only came in time! Hours had passed since the ambuscade had surprised them. It had been early afternoon then. Now the lighted lamp told her it was night. How late she did not know. Her watch had been broken some months before, and she had no means of even guessing the ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... the Romans would, in some measure, conciliate their favour, and soften their resentment. 21. At first the pride of Bocchus struggled against such a proposal; but a few interviews with Sylla reconciled him to this treacherous measure, and Jugur'tha was given up, being drawn into an ambuscade by the specious pretences of his ally, who deluded him by desiring a conference; and being made a prisoner, he was loaded with chains, and carried by Ma'rius to Rome, a deplorable instance of blighted ambition. 22. He did not long survive his overthrow, being ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the captain—just why we could probably not have explained—and that afternoon when he was shot to rags from an ambuscade Brayle remained by the body for some time, adjusting the limbs with needless care—there in the middle of a road swept by gusts of grape and canister! It is easy to condemn this kind of thing, and not very difficult to refrain from ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... precisely what they were, what they have always been: "Convention of Hanover; 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 creatures: and I march home within a week." Villiers speeds ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the courtyard 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 lady, cloaked and hooded, into the carriage, but ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... necessary to fasten her stern to the trees, and to tow her bow around at the very abrupt turns in the river. Within three miles of Gainesville, where the stream became extremely narrow and crooked, with the shores on both sides thickly wooded, the Sachem encountered a very sudden ambuscade, and received a heavy fire of musketry from the eastern bank. This was immediately returned from the vessel by some sixty rifle and musket shots, and discharges of small arms were continued in rapid succession from both sides for some time. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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 convey'd; The door ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... possible to spread trouble among the assailants, by beginning with blowing out Ki-Tsang's brains, if Ki-Tsang is the author of this ambuscade? That would bring matters to ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... partic'lars, but in some they ain't, Dan'l; f'r instance, they don't caw like a crow, and don't try to ambuscade folks, and they give you warning afore they strike, which is more than the ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 the martyred young ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... escaped, and was reconciled to his gaoler, who, in 1584, again conspired, and was executed, while the Ruthven lands were forfeited. By a new revolution (1585-1586) the Ruthvens were reinstated. In July 1593 Gowrie's mother, by an artful ambuscade, enabled the Earl of Bothwell again to kidnap the King. In 1594 our Gowrie, then a lad, joined Bothwell in open rebellion. He was pardoned, and in August 1594 went abroad, travelled as far as Rome, studied at Padua, and, summoned by the party ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... was held to consider in what manner they should approach the sad and solitary bird, which, unconscious that itself was the object of a formidable ambuscade, stood motionless on a stone, by the brink of the lake, watching for such small fish or water-reptiles as might chance to pass by its lonely station. A brief debate took place betwixt Raoul and the hawk-merchant on the best mode of starting the quarry, so as to allow Lady Eveline ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... forward their men before the time, and not waiting for the signal, as they ought, lost an opportunity of performing considerable service. The Romans, having gained the victory in open fight, and also escaped the danger of the ambuscade, retired to their camp. Next day the consul marched out with all his forces, and offered battle, placing his elephants in the front of the foremost battalions. Of this resource the Romans then for the first time availed themselves; having a number of them which had been ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Spain, and defeats him. Among other prisoners, a youth of royal race and exquisite beauty is taken; Scipio sets him free, and sends him, enriched with magnificent presents, to his uncle Masinissa. Marcellus and Quintus Crispinus, consuls, drawn into an ambuscade by Hannibal; Marcellus is slain, Crispinus escapes. Operations by Publius Sulpicius, praetor, against Philip and the Achaeans. A census held; the number of citizens found to amount to one hundred and thirty-seven thousand ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... immediately rushed up the hill and began the conflict. It was severe and protracted: up to midday the Germans stood like walls; but the unwonted heat of the Provengal sun relaxed their energies, and a false alarm in their rear, where a band of Roman camp-boys ran forth from a wooded ambuscade with loud shouts, utterly decided the breaking up of the wavering ranks. The whole horde was scattered, and, as was to be expected in a foreign land, either put to death or taken prisoners. Among the captives ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... 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
... plunged again for a period of weeks into her original island-obscurity, Becker opened his guns. The policy was too cunning to seem dignified; it gave to conduct which would otherwise have seemed bold and even brutally straightforward, the appearance of a timid ambuscade; and helped to shake men's reliance on the word of Germany. On the day named, an ultimatum reached Malietoa at Afenga, whither he had retired months before to avoid friction. A fine of one thousand dollars and an ifo, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... preaching to the desart. The baronet, being a well-bred man, carried his civilities as far as she could in conscience expect, and, if evil tongues are to be believed, some degrees farther; but he was too much a veteran in gallantry, as well as in war, to fall into any ambuscade that she could lay for his affection — While we were absent in the Highlands, she practised also upon the laird of Ladrishmore, and even gave him the rendezvous in the wood of Drumscailloch; but the laird had such ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Baden-Powell, and 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
... cured the almost total blindness of Bertram, son of Hugo de Jubilet, after the disease had baffled the skill of the Saracen and Christian-Syrian physicians of his day. Now Littre avers that a certain Hugo de Jubilet was involved in an ambuscade in Syria in the year 1227, and that he had a son named Bertram. It is very natural, of course, to conclude that this Bertram was the patient recorded in the book of Gilbert. Kingsford says that Gilbert "met" Bertram in Syria, but the text of the Compendium says nothing of the locality ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... and kicked, they were rushed over toward the Hun lines. Dazed, wounded and sick at heart, Jimmy could hardly understand what had happened. Then it was borne to him that he and his rescue party—or what was left of it—had been the victim of a trick. They had run into an ambuscade of Germans who were hidden among the holes and ruined trenches, and had risen up to ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... within the Indian lines and cut to pieces, Girty demands the surrender of Wheeling, Col. Zane's reply, Indians attacks the fort and retire, Arrival of col. Swearingen with a reinforcement, of captain Foreman, Ambuscade at Grave creek narrows, conspiracy of Tories discovered and defeated, Petro and White taken prisoners, Irruption into Tygarts Valley, Murder at Conoly's ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... about three 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 of April. Glenlyon, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... such as gout, apoplexy, and paralysis. "For my part," says an elegant writer, "when I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy I see gouts, and dropsies, fevers, and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes." ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... have entered the city without resistance. Yet we must not too hastily condemn that ceremonious promenading of the Lilies through Champagne. By the march to Reims the French party, those Armagnacs reviled for their cruelty and felony, that little King of Bourges compromised in an infamous ambuscade, may have won advantages greater and more solid than the conquest of the county of Maine and the duchy of Normandy and than a victorious assault on the first city of the realm. By retaking his towns of Champagne and of France without bloodshed, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... soldiers venturing on down the valley instead of hurrying back, they had signalled all over the country calling in war-parties to their aid, and formulated their scheme to ambuscade and "corral" it at the narrows of the valley; but Ray's vigilance and plainscraft had defeated that scheme; though they had good chances yet, if they only knew where the regiment had gone. Late the previous evening it had disappeared behind a prominent headland far up a valley farther to ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... 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 painted ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... Columbia, in the Plata, by the governor of Buenos Ayres, before the squadron despatched by the governor of Brazil, Gomez Freyre, could arrive to protect it. That squadron consisted of the Lord Clive, of 64 guns, an English ship commanded by Capt. Macnamara; the Ambuscade, of 40 guns, in which Penrose, the poet, served as lieutenant; and the Gloria, of 38 guns. The Spanish ships retired before Macnamara, and he ran under the guns of the forts of Colonia, in order to retake the place. He had nearly succeeded ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... the 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 Government was doggedly resolute. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... passed the Boristhenes, encountered a party of 10,000 Muscovites and 6000 Calmuck Tartars; but they gave way on the first onset and fled into a wood, where the king, following the dictates of his great courage more than prudence, pursuing them, fell into an ambuscade, which, throwing themselves between him and three regiments of horse that were with him, hem'd him in, and now began a very unequal fight.—Many of the gallant Swedes were cut to pieces, and the Muscovites made quite up to his majesty:—two aid-de-camps ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... 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 ...
— 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
... fear the hearts of the soldiers.(743) When they began to climb up, they perceived the mountaineers, who had seized upon the highest cliffs, and were prepared to oppose their passage. They therefore were forced to halt. Had the mountaineers, says Polybius, only lain in ambuscade, and after having suffered Hannibal's troops to entangle themselves in some difficult passage, had then charged them on a sudden, the Carthaginian army would have been irrecoverably lost. Hannibal, being informed that they kept those posts only in the daytime, and quitted them ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... followers, upon landing, sat down upon the beach for breakfast; but their repast was rudely disturbed by a shower of stones from an ambuscade of Typees in the edge of the wood. Stopping but a moment to finish their food, the jackies picked up their cutlasses and muskets, and started for the enemy. They were soon in the shady recesses of the tropical forest, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... too late. But I would prefer a fair fight under the open heavens, vessel to vessel, soldier to soldier, sword to sword. Ah, Meroe, for us, Gauls, who despise ambuscade or cowardice, and hang brass bells on the iron of our lances to warn the enemy of our ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... despite the discouraging tone of his voice, it seemed joyful to those crouching in concealment; and, yielding to an instinct that they were now saved by the presence of a stanch protector, they rushed from their ambuscade, and in so doing discovered themselves ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... not fear those who can kill the body; but I sometimes fear that some of you are not enough afraid of that enemy worst of all, who can kill the soul too. And who is that? St. Paul tells us. He is "the devil, who has the power of death," who lies in ambuscade to destroy your body and soul in hell; and will and can do it; but only if you let him. Now who is the devil? It is worth your while to know; for many a man may be, as you are, in the ranks of God's army, and yet doing the devil's work all the while. ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... His courtiers and favorites naturally followed his example, and shared the popular disfavor; in 1576, the Parisians began to designate them as mignons du roi. Their worthy master, whenever it arrived to one of them to be killed in duel or ambuscade, contented himself with giving him a fine tomb and a marble statue in the church of Saint-Paul, hence called "the seraglio of the mignons," so that, says De Thou, "the usual threat against one of these favorites was: 'I will have him carved ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... his female penitent may not suspect at first what he wants her to reveal; for this would generally induce her to shut for ever the door of the fortress against him. After the first steps of advance, he is advised to make several steps back, and to put himself in a kind of spiritual ambuscade, to see the effect of his first advance. If there is any prospect of success, then the word "March on!" is given, and a more advanced post of the citadel must be tried and stormed if possible. In that way, ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... when we formed our little ambuscade. Hopkins was for leaving the door of the hut open, but Holmes was of the opinion that this would rouse the suspicions of the stranger. The lock was a perfectly simple one, and only a strong blade was needed to push it back. Holmes also suggested that we should wait, not ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Daniel came, he resumed his seat by the stove, and remained silent for a while. Then, without the slightest warning or apparent motivation, he began to discuss religion. And how? With the old spirit of defiance, as if from an ambuscade from which he could send out his poisoned arrows, with calculating maliciousness and cold rebellion, with the air of a man who has been defeated, who is now being pursued, and who is willing to concede more to the earthly ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... every hilltop. And the day this army stirs on its march to Catharines-town and Kendaia, the news will run into the North like lightning. You, sir, can hope to encounter no armed resistance as you march northward burning town after town, save only if Butler makes a stand or attempts an ambuscade in force. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... whether you will not alight on iron pickets. Fortunately, I came down in a fresh flower-bed, with no unpleasant result, except a sensation of having nearly bitten my tongue off. I had scarcely steadied myself on my feet, when a tall figure made a rush from some near ambuscade and seized me by the collar. Supposing him to be one of our reserve force, I quietly suffered him to lead me forward, and was on the point of whispering my name, when my eye caught a glimmer of metal, and I knew that I was in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... and 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 up the hill, but were met by a shower of 'pila,' ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... encompassing the flocks and herds, when he heard the burst of war at a distance. There were with him but a handful of his Gomeres. He saw the scamper and pursuit afar off, and beheld the Christian horsemen spurring madly toward the ambuscade on the banks of the Lopera. Hamet tossed his hand triumphantly aloft for his men to follow him. "The Christian dogs are ours!" said he as he put spurs to his horse to take ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... yourself, and my lads shall still be superior. They won't eat, they won't drink—don't need those things; they won't wink for cash at gambling dens and unlicensed rum-holes, they won't spark the scullery maids; and moreover the bands of toughs that ambuscade them on lonely beats, and cowardly shoot and knife them will only damage the uniforms and not live long enough to get more than a momentary ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hard with them, when the remainder of the guerillas, now armed and mounted, came up to their assistance. On perceiving this accession to their adversaries' force, the French thought they had been led into an ambuscade, and retreating in tolerable order to the edge of the wood, at last fairly turned tail and ran for it, leaving several killed and wounded on the ground, and were pursued for some distance by the guerillas, who, however, only succeeded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... that bill, in the end maybe; but that is not a matter of much consequence the government can stand it. She is bent on capturing me, that is plain; but she will find by and by that what she took for a sleeping garrison was an ambuscade." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... essentially bulky and not always of the most peaceful character. This Diana, ambushed in her tower, needs a prey worthy of her prowess. The big Grasshopper, with the powerful jaws; the irascible Wasp; the Bee, the Bumble-bee and other wearers of poisoned daggers must fall into the ambuscade from time to time. The duel is nearly equal in point of weapons. To the venomous fangs of the Lycosa the Wasp opposes her venomous stiletto. Which of the two bandits shall have the best of it? The struggle ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... hastily left 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, and awaited ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... suspicion rests generally on the dead; and the Marquesans, the greatest cannibals of all, are scarce likely to be free from similar beliefs. I hazard the guess that the Vehinehae are the hungry spirits of the dead, continuing their life's business of the cannibal ambuscade, and lying everywhere unseen, and eager to devour the living. Another superstition I picked up through the troubled medium of Tari Coffin's English. The dead, he told me, came and danced by night around the paepae of their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sallied out 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 ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... command, and General George Crook, who is looked upon by the old-timers as perhaps the greatest of our Indian-fighters, led the cavalry against the Apaches. Crook's understanding of the Indian was perfect; and not only was he able to beat the natives at their own game of ambuscade but he thoroughly sympathized with their cause. He knew how Washington and incompetent officers had blundered ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... now looked through the hole to test the truth of the prognostication. The hour of five completed itself on their watches; the girl again came forward. And then the three in ambuscade could see her pull out her handkerchief and place it to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... war had been confined chiefly to the valley of the Connecticut. But from that moment Philip was like a hungry tiger goaded in confinement, suddenly let loose upon his prey. The destruction of villages and the deadly ambuscade of bodies of men followed each other in quick succession. In the space of sixty days his forces attacked Lancaster, Medfield, Weymouth, Groton, Warwick, Marlboro', Rehoboth, Providence, Chelmsford, Andover and Sudbury. At least one half ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... Argive racegrounds; yet the car Whereon he sat came still unshattered home, What gaps were in his harness time had made. Then with couched lance to reach the foe, his targe Covering his rear, and bide the biting sword; Or, on the warpath, place his ambuscade, Marshal his lines and rally his cavaliers; This knightly Castor learned him, erst exiled From Argos, when her realms with all their wealth Of vineyards fell to Tydeus, who received Her and her chariots at Adrastus' hand. Amongst the Heroes none was Castor's ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... 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 himself started with his cavalry from Lychnidus at nightfall, and ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... brothers, the flower of Roman youth, exulting in their blood, and insolence, and vigor.—The first of them, Ottavio, was killed by a cannon-ball at sea in honorable combat with the Turk. Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge in France, was shot down in an ambuscade while pursuing his amours with a gentle lady. A third, Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the troops of General Farnese. A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for his share of the step-mother's murder, but was released on the plea that he had avenged the wounded honor of his race. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... together, and that same night they departed, three times fifty warriors, and the same number of women, and dogs, and servants, and Deirdre went with them. And for a long time they wandered about Ireland, in homage to this man or that; and often Conor sought to slay them, either by ambuscade or by treachery; from round about Assaroe, near to Ballyshannon in the west, they journeyed, and they turned them back to Benn Etar, in the north-east, which men to-day call the Mountain of Howth. Nevertheless the men of Ulster drave them ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... case learned of Herkimer's advance and sent the savages under his command to intercept and ambuscade him. A terrible hand-to-hand combat ensued in which a hundred and sixty of the colonists were killed and the loss to the Indians was as great. General Herkimer's horse was shot under him and he himself wounded severely in the leg. Notwithstanding his agony he insisted upon being placed ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... He saw the English running into an ambuscade, and he determined, even if it should cost him his life, to warn them. Presently they heard the sharp puffs of the steam launch. The boats were within three ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... Greater Love—men call it this; No light-o'-love sets here an ambuscade; No tender torture of the secret kiss Makes sick the spirit and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and I didn't get a chance to croak a single Fritzie. My ol' man had better luck in the civil war. He was out one hot nite with a foraging party and they run into a confed ambuscade, a big fat Johnny Reb took after my old man and the chase was nip and tuck fer about 2 miles. Just when the ol' gent had give himself as lost, he saw over his shoulder the confed fall down in a heap and die from being overheated. ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... said was cut short by the furious outburst of firing from the guns, which dropped shell after shell into the projected ambuscade. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... part in the war, and he little thought at that time that an enemy would ever come so far from Barcelona; but yesterday, when a message came that a small party of the enemy had entered the valley, and that the peasants had prepared an ambuscade for them on their return, and that they hoped that the count their master would himself come and lead them to annihilate the heretics, the simple man agreed, never thinking that you might be among them. What will his feelings be when, he ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... to visit and scour the thicket, and returned presently; having discovered, on the left, an ambuscade of squab Chitterlings; and on the right, about half a league from thence, a large body of huge giant-like armed Chitterlings ranged in battalia along a little hill, and marching furiously towards us at the sound of bagpipes, sheep's paunches, and bladders, the merry fifes and drums, trumpets, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... is sometimes said that Braddock fell into an ambuscade. This is a mistake. He was surprised because he did not send scouts ahead of his army; but the Indians were not in ambush. Braddock would not permit the troops to fight in Indian fashion from behind trees and bushes, but forced his men ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... with a good horse; then go to the wine-shop for one of our men, who will accompany you to Monsieur Wilson's house. When you get there ring, enter alone and give the porter this letter, saying that it is of the utmost importance. This done, put yourself with your companion in ambuscade before the house. If Monsieur Wilson goes out—and he will go out or I am not Lecoq —send your comrade to me at once. As for you, you will follow Monsieur Wilson and not lose sight of him. He will take a carriage, and you ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... return to rebuild it; accordingly they themselves set fire to it, and totally destroyed it. The captain, having arrived at his destination at midnight, with all possible secrecy leaped ashore, and arranged his men and the Pintados [42] Indians whom he had with him in ambuscade near the villages, in order to make the attack upon them at daybreak. However, the natives of this island having been informed of the hostile incursion of the Spaniards, withdrew with their children and wives and all their belongings that they could take with them, to three forts which they had ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... fight—if fight there were—would be made. Should the Indians take the palisade, there would yet be the houses of the town, and, last of all, the fort in which to make a stand. I believed not that they would take it, for Indian warfare ran more to ambuscade and surprise than to assault in ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... commonly called supplicatio, and was a sign that the general was likely to be honoured with a triumph. [309] Necubi for ne alicubi, 'in order that not somewhere.' See Zumpt, S 136. [310] Post insidias Jugurthae, 'after he had once experienced attacks made from an ambuscade.' ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... the team into a run, and they had just begun to hope the ambuscade had been passed, when three more Boers sprang out of the willows nearly opposite them ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... trick upon her father. Then she dug 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 ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... miles west of Camden the 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
... while the remainder were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was supplied with water. The most experienced of the defenders understood the tactics of their wily foes, and shrewdly guessed that an ambuscade had been prepared in order to cut off the garrison from access to the spring. The water in the station was already exhausted, and unless a fresh supply could be obtained the most dreadful sufferings were apprehended. It ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... distant passes to the relief of the fort. They were slow, but we could trace their toilful progress up the lower valleys. I wondered why Ruiz did not march to attack and destroy this threatening force, in some wild gorge fit for an ambuscade, in accordance with his genius for guerilla warfare. But his genius seemed to have abandoned him ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Drive what may through darksome smother; Saturate, but never sinking, Fatal only to the other! Deadlier than the sunken reef Since still the snare it shifteth, Torpid in dumb ambuscade ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... From his ambuscade he looked out upon the approaching canoe. He was puzzled by the slowness of its progress. At times it seemed to stand still, and he could distinguish no movement at all among its occupants. At first he thought they were undecided as to which ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... well calculated by nature to form, as it has done, an important rendezvous and ambuscade for the prowling savages of the prairies, and often afforded them, especially the once powerful and murderous Pawnees whose name it perpetuates, a pleasant little retreat or eyrie from which to watch the passing Santa Fe traders, and dash down upon them like hawks, to carry off ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Latin coast from the Tiber mouth, past the site of Lavinium down to Ardea, is convinced that the poet traced every manoeuvre and every sally on the actual ground which he chose for his theatre of action in the last six books. It still seems possible to recognize the deep valley of the ambuscade and the plain where Camilla deployed her cavalry. Furthermore, there can be little doubt that for the sake of a heroic-age setting Vergil studied the remains and records of most ancient Rome. There were still in existence in various Latin towns sixth-century temples laden ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... to recal the parting Glances of her Beholders. You see my Complaint, and hope you will take these mischievous People, the Peepers, into your Consideration: I doubt not but you will think a Peeper as much more pernicious than a Starer, as an Ambuscade is more to be feared than ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a chant, a saga, a recitation of the glories of his ancestors. The Malhominis had been a proud race,—now they were dwindled to this village of eighty braves. He crooned long tales of famine, of tribal bickerings, of ambuscade and defeat; his voice rustled monotonously like wind ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the Indians to do the work. Then come reports of a massacre in some town on the frontier, and with it is coupled a whisper of "Castine!" a fort has been surprised, he is there! Some of Church's men have fallen in an ambuscade; the baron has planned it, and furnished the arms and ammunition by which the deed was consummated! Superstition invests him with imaginary powers; fanaticism exclaims, 'tis he who had taught the savages to believe that we are the people who ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... regarding the actual state of the country, and in every case I have been grievously disappointed. Vague general phrases, founded on a priori reasoning rather than on observation, together with a few statistical tables—which the cautious investigator should avoid as he would an ambuscade—are too often all that is to be found. Through the thin veil of pseudo-erudition the real facts are clear enough. These philosophical legislators, who have spent their lives in the official atmosphere of St. Petersburg, know as ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... for him 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 and firing ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... stated, but had all gone back? Might not others—stimulated by a more eager spirit of vengeance, or the ambition of striking a glorious coup by my capture—have continued the pursuit? If so we might expect to encounter them on their return; or, if first perceived, we might fall into an ambuscade. In either case should they chance to outnumber us—to any great extent—a collision ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... 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 ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... sofa.] No, I will. Here it is—"Battle with Ladrones. The 91st Regiment of New York, which went out under Captain H.S. Miller to subdue the bandits in the Island of Orla, met an ambuscade of the Ladrones and were annihilated almost to a man." [She looks up dazed, not able at once to realize what it means. Rereads, skipping some lines.] "Captain H.S. Miller who went out under—to subdue the bandits in the—met an ambuscade of the Ladrones ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... to another state, abounding, for a mountainous country, with inhabitants, where he was nearly overcome, not by open war, but by his own arts of treachery and ambuscade. Some old men, governors of forts, came as deputies to the Carthaginian, professing, "that having been warned by the useful example of the calamities of others, they wished rather to experience the friendship than the hostilities of the Carthaginians; they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... swift through the darksome glade, And roves o'er the mountains all? It crouches in nightly ambuscade; The hurrah breaks round the foe dismayed, And the Frankish sergeants fall. Should you of the rangers black demand— That is Luetzow's ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... winds. Each separate chasm in the encircling hills was a mouth to discharge a separate blast. The winds swept down into the hollow and charged in a riotous combat about the squares and lanes; at each corner was an ambuscade, and everywhere they clashed with artilleries ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... stop 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 to London for promotion, Dick and ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... I made the acquaintance of an odd character—a young fellow who in turns betrayed both royalists and republicans. My relations with him recall a somewhat droll occurrence. I found that he was guiding the regiment I commanded into an ambuscade of the insurgents, and I ordered him to be hung to the first tree we should meet with. Fortunately for him my men translated the order in its most literal sense; and being at the time in the middle of vast savannahs entirely destitute of trees, ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Market-Hill's[5] exalted head, Full northward let your troops be led; While I from Drapier's-Mount descend, And to the south my squadrons bend. New-River Walk, with friendly shade, Shall keep my host in ambuscade; While you, from where the basin stands, Shall scale the rampart with your bands. Nor need we doubt the fort to win; I hold intelligence within. True, Lady Anne no danger fears, Brave as the Upton fan she wears;[6] Then, lest upon our first attack Her valiant arm should force us back, And we of ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Aug. 25, 1914, the inhabitants of Luneville made an attack by ambuscade against the German columns and transports. On the same day the inhabitants fired on hospital buildings marked with the Red Cross. Further, shots were fired on the German wounded and the military hospital containing a German ambulance. On account ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... of the way we came that did not hold a hundred hiding-places fit for ambuscade, but our party was too numerous and well-armed to need worry on that account. Monty and Kagig drew ahead, quite a little way behind the gipsies still, but far in front of us, who had to keep Fred upright ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... the bay, came thundering round the curve, there was a fierce splutter of pistol shots from amongst the bushes, and the grey sank down upon its knees with a sobbing moan, struck mortally in the head. Ezra sprang to his feet and rushed at the ambuscade, while the sergeant, who had been grazed on the cheek by the first volley, jumped from his horse and followed him. Burt and Farintosh met them foot to foot with all the Saxon gallantry which underlies the Saxon brutality. Burt stabbed at the sergeant and struck him through the muscle ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not only upon their enemies, but also on their neighbours, in the hope either of robbing them when off their guard, or of obtaining a ransom for any unwary traveller who might fall into their hands. Everywhere society was in ambuscade, and waged civil war—individual against individual—without peace or mercy. Such was the reign of feudalism. It is unnecessary to point out how this system of perpetual petty warfare tended to reduce the power of centralisation, and how royalty itself ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... army in a secluded encampment, and with a few chosen troops floated down the stream in barges, disguised as merchant boats. Landing in the night beneath the high and precipitous banks near the town, he placed a number of his soldiers in ambuscade, and then calling upon the princes of Kief, informed them that he had been sent by the king of Novgorod, with a commercial adventure down the Dnieper, and invited them to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... which only four men could pass abreast. He made such haste that he marched four leagues in two hours, and at daybreak found himself at the entrance of the pass, which, however, seemed so peculiarly well adapted for an ambuscade, that he halted his battalion, and sent on twenty men to reconnoitre. In a quarter of an hour the twenty men returned. They had not met a single living thing. The colonel hesitated no longer, and entered the defile; but, on reaching ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... a nose? and can he follow a clean scent?" exclaimed the marine; "do you think, Signor Pilota, that a general ever puts his forces in an ambuscade where he can't find them himself? 'Fore God! I knew well enough where the rascals lay snoring on their knapsacks, some half an hour ago, and I would have given the oldest majority in Washington's army to have had them where a small intimation ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Betty cursed the cat, whose duty Was to protect and guard the booty. A ratcatcher, of well known skill, Was called to kill or scotch the ill; And, as an engineer, surveyed Their haunts and laid an ambuscade. A cat behold him, and was wrath, Whilst she resolved to cross his path; Not to be beaten by such chaps, She silently removed his traps. Again he set the traps and toils, Again his cunning pussy foils. He set a trap to catch the thief, And pussy she got caught in brief. "Ah!" ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... completely that but little of the light of day could penetrate. The general width was about 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 ventured, under any ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe |
